The hotel room was bathed in a yellowish half-light, illuminated only by the bedside lamp. Arion sat in the armchair by the window, his forehead pressed against the cold glass as he watched the lights of Paris flicker on the horizon. In the distance, the Eiffel Tower rose like a sentinel, but to him the image seemed lifeless, almost hollow. The silence between him and Lior was heavy, charged like a storm about to break.
Lior, sitting on the bed, scrolled through his phone with a serious expression."I'm going to call my sister. She still lives in our childhood home. The notebook is there. I never had the courage to get rid of it."
Arion turned his head, attentive."She'll send it?"
"She will," Lior sighed. "But she won't understand. She thinks you were the reason for all the chaos. She'll say you only bring trouble, Arion." He looked at him firmly. "And deep down, part of me believed that for a long time."
The words hit Arion like a punch. He swallowed hard, unable to answer. The truth was that, in a way, Lior was right. When Seraya disappeared, he hadn't known how to cope. Her silence had turned into his own silence, and in it, Arion had drowned until almost nothing remained of him.
Lior typed quickly and started a video call. The screen lit up his face, revealing a woman with short hair and sharp eyes."Lior?" she said before noticing Arion in the background. Her expression hardened. "Don't tell me this is what I think it is."
"I need a favor, Liana," Lior began, his voice steady. "Seraya's notebook. It's in my room, second drawer of the desk. I need you to send it to me."
"Are you insane?" her voice rose half a tone, sharp. "This should have stayed buried! You know how much it destroyed everyone. And now you show up with Arion there, as if nothing ever happened?"
Arion closed his eyes, feeling the accusation cut into him like blades.
"Liana," Lior insisted, patient, "I know what I'm asking. But it's important. I'm not asking for much, only that you trust me."
"Trust?" she laughed without humor. "It was because of that blind trust that you stayed stuck in the past for so long. And Arion…" her gaze shifted to the screen, locking on him, heavy with rancor, "you should be on a stage, not dragging my brother back into the abyss."
Arion couldn't stand hearing more. He got up and walked onto the balcony. The glass door creaked as it opened, and the cold night wind struck his face. Below, the sounds of the city carried on as usual: horns, footsteps, voices mingling. But to him, it all felt distant, as if an invisible wall separated him from the rest of the world.
The argument between Lior and Liana continued muffled behind him, but soon ended with her curt reply:"I'll send the damn notebook. But if this destroys you again, don't say I didn't warn you."
When Lior hung up, he found Arion on the balcony, his eyes lost on the horizon."She'll send it," he said simply. "But she's not happy about it."
Arion nodded without turning. "No one ever was."
Silence settled again between them, but it didn't last. Arion's phone vibrated in his pocket. He answered without checking the number. On the other end, his manager's exasperated voice exploded:"Where the hell are you, Arion?! You had rehearsal right now. Right now! Tomorrow's show isn't in just any city, it's in Paris. We have sponsors, journalists, a whole team mobilized, and you just vanish?"
Arion closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against the railing. "I needed some time."
"Time?!" the voice nearly burst through the speaker. "Do you think the music industry waits for your 'time'? You have no idea the pressure we're under. If you keep this up, you'll destroy your career."
He almost laughed. Those words were so familiar. You'll destroy your career. As if he hadn't heard them before, countless times.
"I'll be back tomorrow morning," he replied, trying to sound firm. "But tonight, I can't."
"Arion, are you listening to me?" the tone shifted from anger to something closer to desperation. "I've seen this before. The vanishing, the way you talk… Don't tell me this is because of her again. No! You can't fall back into that hole. You know what it did to you."
Arion hung up without answering. His hand trembled as he slipped the phone back into his pocket.
Lior watched in silence."They're right, you know?" he said quietly. "You nearly destroyed everything after she disappeared."
And then, as if a trigger had been pulled, Arion felt the weight of the past crash down on him. The memories surged back, ravenous, and he didn't resist.
Flashback — Five Years Earlier
The rain was falling lightly that night. Arion was in his room, the guitar abandoned in a corner, sheet music scattered like the ashes of a fire. His phone rang relentlessly, but he didn't answer. He knew what it was: another demand, another interview request, another show booked that he couldn't even imagine doing.
Seraya had vanished. One day she was there, painting in her makeshift studio, laughing at his jokes, debating colors and notes as if they were two halves of the same body. The next, there was only emptiness. No one knew where she had gone. No letter, no clue, nothing. Only silence.
Arion curled up on the bed, hugging himself. Every second without her felt like a cut. His voice, once steady, faltered whenever he tried to sing. The audience noticed, the press noticed. Within weeks, the promising career he had built began to crumble.
His manager shouted backstage:"You need to pull yourself together, Arion! People pay to hear you sing, not to watch a ghost on stage!"
But Arion didn't pull himself together. He canceled performances, skipped rehearsals, disappeared into bars, drinking until dawn to try and silence the pain. With each article about his "sudden downfall," he sank deeper.
Lior was one of the few who tried to reach him. He knocked on his door countless times."Arion, please, open up. You can't go on like this. You're not the only one hurting."
But Arion never opened. The whole world could collapse on the other side of the door, and he wouldn't have the strength to turn the key.
During that time, his music stopped. The guitar gathered dust, his voice went silent. Only memories of Seraya remained: the sound of her laughter, the way her brushes scratched paper, the gentle melodies she made up to match her colors.
Months of silence. Months in which Arion ceased to be Arion.
Back to the Present
"That's what happened," Arion said, hardly realizing he was speaking aloud. "I let everything fall apart because I couldn't exist without her."
Lior stepped closer, leaning on the balcony railing. "I know. I was there. I saw it." He drew a deep breath. "And that's why I walked away. Because you were destroying yourself, and I couldn't save you."
The icy wind passed between them, carrying away a fraction of the weight that surrounded them.
Arion looked at Lior, his eyes filled with a determination he hadn't had five years ago. "I won't repeat that. I won't let silence swallow everything again. If that notebook exists, if she left clues, I'll follow them."
Lior nodded slowly. "Then we'll wait. When it arrives, we'll know where to begin."
In the room, the light flickered for an instant, as if the power wavered. Arion and Lior exchanged wary glances. Outside, through the streets of Marais, a distant music began to rise, soft yet unsettling, as if it came from every corner at once.
Arion closed his eyes. He knew that melody. It was Seraya's.
And for the first time in five years, he felt he wasn't alone.