Surplus of arms

Calls that could’ve been emails, emails that could’ve been avoided altogether if only people could pay attention and actually read for once.

On the surface, he’s taken all of this in stride, ever the team player despite his ordinarily strict delineation between work and life slipping as sneakily as the purview of his role has.

The recent integration of the summer interns in the office has thrown a new variable into what was always set to be a busy end of quarter. As a result, Nanami finds himself inheriting much of the additional workload incurred by his colleagues, which, in turn, jeopardizes what is now an all too precious Tuesday night window between the hours of seven and nine in the evening.

This is where Nanami sees it imperative to draw the line.

And he does draw it, even if it’s a blurry one. He leaves the office on time, yes, but responsibility tethers him to bringing his unfinished work out with him, thereby merely deferring the dreaded overtime—a stark violation of the unwritten rule he’s managed to stick to since he embarked on this career.

But at least he’s here now, and at least he’s in your presence, even if you don’t realize it.

The atmosphere in the back lounge, where Nanami sits for the first time, is significantly more casual—a sharp contrast to the quieter, warmer, and more intimate front area he’s most accustomed to. By the time the sounds from the stage reach here, they arrive somewhat diminished, dissipating under the loud crack of pool balls, and of boisterous chatter and laughter.

Alas, this is where he’s better suited tonight, Nanami thinks, and it’s almost on cue that his phone buzzes, reminding him as much by buzzing over this work laptop, vibrating strongly enough to make the aluminum rattle against the wooden table. The incessant pinging comes much to Nanami’s irritation, a persistent source of his distraction tonight, but it’s one that he temporarily relegates to a far-back corner of his attention, which has since been captivated by you.

Here he is now, watching you from afar, and despite the rowdy soundscape around him, Nanami manages to mute the surrounding noise and to forget, if only for a moment, the tedious client report deck that has burdened his mind this evening, and to hone in on both the music emanating from the stage, along with the woman who emulates it with her graceful movements.

This is when it hits him, hard—the fact that he’s so much farther from you than he’d like to be.

Nanami's vantage point only grants him a partial view of your profile, but he’s not so far that he’s not able to discern a uniquely wistful air about you.

It’s in the softness of your eyes, slightly more distant than usual under half-lowered lashes, and in the slump of your shoulders, reflecting a certain quiet surrender to the notes you’re playing over keys he can nearly feel as much as he imagines you do.

Much like the first time he perceived you, Nanami finds himself enchanted by the movement of your fingers, this time by the way they track the slow cadence of the notes being played, as if they are the ones generating the sounds themselves.

When his phone buzzes again, it succeeds in shattering him from his contemplation. It's yet another notification, not the one he hopes to see, certainly not the one that liberates him from the chains of this onerous, last-minute deliverable from hell that currently hinders him from enjoying the rest of the evening as he truly desires.

He lifts his gaze after a moment lost to replying to yet another previously addressed detail, but instead of finding you, they land on Mona-san, the friendly server he’s watched engage with you so often, the one who was kind enough to guide him towards this lounge when he’d arrived earlier, hesitantly seeking for a suitable place to catch up on work, after which she'd cordially offered to be of service if he’d needed anything else.

When Nanami raises two fingers, just enough to catch her attention, it’s a reflexive gesture that long precedes the conscious decision of taking her up on her offer.

“You really ought to get up there and just play one of these days,” Mona cuts into your reverie with a light tap of her tray on your table. “This place would be too lucky to host something as sweet as a performance from you.”

“You flatter me, Mona-san,” you respond, your gaze drifting up to hers as you’re still slowly emerging from the ninety near-uninterrupted minutes you’ve spent lost in something beyond the performance on stage. “I'm far too washed to inflict myself upon this fine establishment.”

This time, it’s your arm that Mona taps with her tray, softly but no less reprimanding.

“I’m supposed to pretend you didn’t present us with some delicious crumbs that one time when you slid on that piano and played a little something for that fun crew from your office?”

“You mean the half-assed rendition of Autumn Leaves I was borderline coerced into performing by my manager? I only relented because I badly needed that bonus and because I'm still fairly certain everyone would be too drunk to remember it.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” she says as he reaches over to pick up your empty cup. “Well, if it’s going to take another team-building outing for me to ever hear you play again, you already know I’m not beneath tracking down that boss of yours. He seemed to like me a lot! I bet I could convince him to bring you all back. ”

You laugh at her remark, finding some levity in what is perhaps the most irrefutable thing she’s said so far. “I don’t doubt for a second that he’d be putty in your hands, but it would be a waste of effort, I fear. I promise you there is no audience for what I’m barely capable of coherently playing these days.”

“I don’t know about that. I can think of at least one potentially interested party…” she trails off.

It’s only after you’ve fished your wallet from your purse, ready to settle your tab for the evening, that you meet Mona’s expectant gaze, which she flicks both to her right and towards the door behind her.

She must read the confusion in your eyes because her movements get slightly more pointed as you struggle to follow her gesturing before finally your eyes finally land on the back of a man’s figure right before he disappears out of view through the bay window, but not prior to your mind attributing the distinct combination of pinstripe and light gold to Nanami Kento.

Your gaze snaps back to Mona, and the amused glint in her eyes validates your guess as much as it signals her eager anticipation for your response.

“I suggested the back lounge after he asked if there was somewhere he could plug his laptop and take some work calls, but if you ask me, Blondie was far more mesmerized by your silent take on B Minor Waltz than whatever he had going on his little phone.”

The second part was easier to dismiss, especially when coming from your friend, who you know to possess an almost comical flair for hyperbole. But it takes you a moment for it to register, for you to align what you just saw and what Mona’s just said—that Nanami was not only here but that he'd been sitting just a few feet behind you all evening.

“Please, Mona-san," you say with a dismissive shake of your head. "You realize that I do not know this man.”

“Hey, I’m just the messenger,” she says with a slight shrug. “And you may not know him, but he did just cover your tab, by the way.”

“He did what?” you say with a laugh that tilts more nervous than incredulous.

“You heard me. So put your card away, but also… You didn’t hear this from me. He damn near swore me to secrecy, and I’m really only telling you this on the off-chance that you are the reason this Nanami guy keeps returning and leaving these generously fat tips. Don’t you mess up the bag for me, now!”

She leaves as swiftly as she arrived, before you can muster up a response, before you can ask the nascent shuffling in your mind. Your eyes flick back to where you’ve just witnessed Nanami make his exit, finding only a palpable echo of his presence.

The days that follow melt into one another.

By the time it's Tuesday again, the week already feels dissonant and disarrayed, a tone set by your phone alarm inexplicably failing to ring, which kicked off a domino effect of a missed train, a forgotten lunch, and a chaotic work day that leaves you frazzled by the time it rolls into its evening.

In the absence of your umbrella, it’s only the thin hood of your jacket that offers you scant protection from the sudden downpour that appears to be escalating just as you step out from the train station, as if it had been lying in wait, stretching the short walk to the bar into what feels like an eternity.

You have half a mind to skip your evening plans altogether, of surrendering and calling it a day, and if it’s a thought that is trumped almost as hastily as it forms, it’s in no small part due to a bit of sunk cost fallacy, along with the thin but solid thread that moors you to the conviction that this is exactly the kind of distraction you need after a hectic day like this.

So along you trudge, and as you finally approach the door, lingering words jostle to reach the forefront of your tired mind.

On the off chance…

It’s with a forceful shake of your head that you attempt to dislodge the persistent phrase uttered by Mona-san last week, the one that’s been echoing in your mind for the better part of the last six days. It takes you a moment for you to make the mental migration back to the present, to the lights already dimmed as you enter, to the music from tonight’s performance already emanating from the stage, and to whomever else you may or may not find here tonight.

And it turns out that much like last week, you don’t see Nanami when you glance over at what is decidedly no longer his usual seat.

Almost instinctively, certainly before you consciously command them, your eyes shift, bound for the back lounge, but it’s an endeavor that is halted as soon as it is conceived, because your eyes do find Nanami before you expect them to.

There he sits, with his suit jacket discarded over the chair next to him, and you wonder whether his relaxed demeanor is more pronounced than usual, or if it’s simply your distance, along with the soft, subdued lighting that grants him this allure.

On the off chance that you’re the reason…

It’s with unyielding might, this time, that the words you discarded just a minute ago resurface to the forefront of your mind.

Nanami's eyes are narrowed in an intent gaze, as if to study the trumpeter on stage, who is in the middle of enacting a recognizable solo covering a familiar Miles Davis Quintet piece, one you know like the back of your hand but whose title somehow evades you within the tumult of your mind.

Just take another seat, you tell yourself. You take note of the few individual ones open closer within the front-most rows, and of the numerous ones towards the back. Hell, even Nanami’s so-called usual seat is free right now, and you know it’s almost as good as yours, so you can just take another seat.

But so could he, comes another inner voice, overtaking the first one, as it occurs to you that it’s indeed your spot he chose to occupy, of all places.

On the off chance that you’re the reason Nanami keeps returning…

There’s just something about the prevalence of this phrase, about what is now its plausible implication, that utterly overrides your usual reservedness, handing the victory to the bolder voice side of you.

It feels like you are watching yourself walk towards Nanami, like a puppet on intrepid strings, your feet no longer yours to fully control as they carry you towards the empty side of the two-seater table that shines like a beacon next to the man who has yet to notice your approach.

Your words don’t spill as much as they flow out, steady and even, surprising even yourself.

“Thanks for saving my seat, Nanami.”

You watch as narrowed hazel eyes widen before shifting over to you, and when Nanami Kento finally meets your gaze, you find something in them that betrays the indecipherable calculation he is making in his mind, one whose solution appears to have him elect to scoot over to the second stool, sliding his drink and a barely touched order of appetizers along with him, inviting you not only to sit down but to join him.

“I’m surprised you made it,” he replies, his voice low and warm and natural as he gestures towards the seat he was just occupying, and you take it as easily and effortlessly as he invites you. It's yours for now.

Now it’s your turn to hesitate, but for not more than a brief moment during which you can’t help but wonder whether it’s the way Nanami punctuates his comment with your name or perhaps the lingering warmth of his body heat on the seat that brings a sudden, welcomed contrast to the cool, wet, chaotic world that exists outside these doors.

But then you see it, just barely perceptible under the dimmed lights, in the tinge of pink crawling up from the part of his neck exposed by his first unfastened button, rising over his chin before settling on his cheek.

It’s right here, in the way his fingers are pulling onto the edge of his plate before drumming them there, revealing a slight jitter you wouldn’t immediately imagine him to have, and it now comes to you in a quiet realization—that maybe you’re not so disadvantaged in this exchange, that perhaps you are both treading on the same, uneven ground.

It’s what gives you enough of a push to prop your head over your hand, to peer over at Nanami, and to quip on:

“I’m here every week, you might have noticed. What made you think I wouldn’t make it tonight?”

Nanami lets out a light chuckle, as if releasing a breath he’s been holding, “Well, you are exceptionally late.”

His point is one you’d gladly concede were it not for the amusement in his tone. Instead, it persuades you not to relent so easily.

“Late? I don’t believe I have a fixed arrival time.”

“Are you sure?”

It’s subtle, but you catch it, the tiniest twinkle in his eyes before he glances towards the stage.

Oh, is that how it’s going to be?

“Well, what constitutes late?” you ask, emphasizing the latter word with a playful air-quote gesture.

Nanami's mouth curves behind the next sip of his drink, his eyes peeking back at you over the rim of his glass.

“Well, the group is already well into its performance; this is, in fact, their second track. You’re usually seated with your mocktail long before they start.”

It doesn’t escape you, the way he does not even pretend to attempt to deny that he’s been observing you, even going as far as making a cheeky remark about your preferred type of drink. It drives a sudden rush of warmth to surge through your body.

Your gaze follows his as they return towards the stage, and your eyes instinctively find their habitual destination over the piano keys. For a brief moment, you take in the instrument's rhythmic, floating support, the way its tones form a calm sea alongside the bass and against the oh so familiar theme played by the robust sax, a piece whose title should be so easy for you to identify, yet remains lodged somewhere within your slightly disoriented mind.

When you attempt to steal a glance at the surprising source of said disorientation, you find Nanami’s steady gaze.

Again, the corners of his eyes crinkle.

Again, he smiles.

As the edges of your surroundings pleasantly blur, and the sounds around you take on a slightly muted quality, the soft sigh you emit is a subconscious effort to counteract the instinct to hold your breath.

“Alright, fine…" You concede. "So, you assumed that I wouldn’t show up, and that's what made you decide to sit here tonight?”

“Well, no, that’s not exactly it,” he says as he slowly leans towards you, cautious, halting about halfway between the space between you.

The dim overhead lighting strikes the side of Nanami's profile, creating shadows that define his jawline as much as they highlight a salient, deep-set weariness that forms pockets under his eyes. In your newfound proximity, you pick up a fragrance of salt-kissed ocean air, of effortless marine notes grounded by smooth cedarwood.

And for the second time in just as many minutes, you find yourself following Nanami’s gaze, guided by the extension of his arm forward as he points toward the stage once more before he speaks again.

“I sought to see it the way you see it," he continues, "To hear the sounds, in the way you hear them, and to perceive it all, from your perspective.”

He draws back, and just like that, the intimate instant promptly reverts to something more neutral.

“But seeing as you are here now, I don't mean to disrupt your evening. I'll change seats. Please do order anything you’d like. My treat,” he adds quietly.

It’s almost dizzying, the swiftness with which this permissive, uninhibited pocket of a moment finds itself shattered just as quickly as it is formed, and by its own architect, no less.

You realize how serious Nanami is in his intention to grant you your space in the snappy way he polishes off the rest of his drink, perhaps a little too quickly, before determinedly standing to his feet and moving to gather his belongings. The whiplash hits you with a jolt that has your words outpacing your thoughts as they slip past your lips.

“Do you always do this, Nanami? Generously pay for someone’s drink before robbing them of your company?”

His movement stills as your words register, and you can nearly visualize the gears spinning in his mind as he processes their implications. Your eyes meet, and for the first time, you think you manage to read Nanami Kento, to actually read him, to pinpoint exactly the point at which his aversion to imposing on you shines nearly as bright as his hope that you’ll allow him the indulgence.

You’re inclined to oblige the latter.

“What I mean is, thank you for your offer, Nanami. But only if you share an appetizer with me as well, will I forgive this clearly egregious transgression of sitting at my very unassigned seat,” you say, playfulness well-laced in your tone before softly adding, “Maybe I can share a thing or two about my perspective.”

You perceive something of a glint traveling to his eyes even before his mouth curves into yet another one of his smiles.

“Well then, if this is what will grant me your forgiveness,” he says as he gives a solemn bow of his head, a gesture that elicits a snicker from you.

It suddenly all clicks into place, like a lens finding its focus. “So What,” you say unthinkingly.

“Pardon?”

“So What,” you repeat, with more certainty, your turn to point gesture towards the stage. “It's the title for this piece. It’s a modal jazz track written by Miles Davis, recognizable by its call-and-response pattern between the bass and the rest of the group. It’s like a playful dialogue,” you pause to give a pointed sidelong glance at Nanami before adding, “You know, like banter.”

Nanami smiles and resettles himself on the seat next to you. It's his, for now.

“So, you’re a pianist?”

You reflexively wince at Nanami's words as they gently breach the comfortable lull you've both naturally slipped into.

A couple of weeks have elapsed since that rainy Tuesday evening when you first sat together, something that has since firmly ensconced itself as a wordless, weekly habit between the two of you, a simple one, not something you ever establish explicitly.

Now, Nanami does save your seat in earnest, and on the occasions you get here before him, you do the same.

Up until this present moment, your conversations have more or less held the same loose structure—he comments on the piece being performed, sometimes asks you something specific about it that you’re happy to answer and provide some context for. You both listen more than you speak, allowing the music to fill the space between you.

But then comes a moment on an evening like this—with the night’s performance taking a longer than expected interlude to a technical issue, extending the dead time in between sets, in between you.

Now it’s a subtle, but no less undeniable energy, a palpable magnetism, that occupies the void left by the paused tunes.

“Only in aspiration, I fear,” you finally respond as you bring your cup to your lips, reacting to a newfound urge to quickly find its bottom, as if it could hold the remedy to your sudden unease.

Nanami asks another question, but not before a moment of consideration, something more tentative tingeing his usually even tone, “Do you not play the piano?”

You pull the last traces of your drink through your straw with a hollow slurp, an audible reminder that there really is only so much time you can kill by hiding behind a citrus.

“I used to play more regularly… All in a past life now, really.”

Out of your peripheral vision, you detect Nanami’s gaze linger on you for a moment, as surely as you perceive that it’s more out of interest than scrutiny.

A pang of guilt tightens your throat at the sound of the unintentional curtness held in your tone, and yet you also find yourself tethered to the conviction that it’s perhaps for the best that you not yet broach a subject matter with which you're still grappling yourself.

Where you expect Nanami to follow up, he says nothing, instead only sliding the plate of appetizers he’s ordered closer to you, his silent offering.

And where you expect discomfort to slither into the silence that settles between you, you instead find something weightless, devoid of the kind of imposition you’d otherwise brace yourself for in an exchange like this.

It’s remorsefully refreshing.

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch Mona’s gaze for a brief moment, just long enough for her to throw you a cursory, amused lift of her eyebrow as she clears a nearby table.

With quite a few of her recent shifts no longer falling on Tuesdays, you’ve had so little opportunity to catch up with her in person. As you flash her a smile before dropping your eyes back to your empty drink, you can only imagine the speculative tales she’s made up about your budding association with “Blondie” over the last couple of weeks, just as you can imagine her risible reaction if she were to hear the way you’re handling her new favorite patron’s earnest attempt at small talk.

There's something of an urgent restlessness that spawns from somewhere just beyond that reflection, one perhaps that spurs you onward.

“These days I spend more time reading spreadsheets than sheet music,” you speak again, finally breaking the brief stillness.

Nanami lets out a low hum, “Accountant?”

It’s your turn to glance over at him.

“I am an auditor, yes… How do you know? I’m pretty sure I never told you this…”

“Just an educated guess…" he muses with a self-satisfied twist of his lips before adding, "based on some context cues…”

Your eyes don’t leave Nanami as your fingers find a mini-soft pretzel from his plate, welcoming your tongue with a tender, bread-like flavor that serves as the comforting prelude to the memory you’ll come to form from this moment.

“Alright, Mr. Detective, how about you? You look like you fit right in the financial district.”

It’s his turn to grimace before emitting a wry laugh as he responds, “I would hope not to.”

Across the room, the trumpet breathes a thin, wavering tone that cracks at its edge, a false start that may very well signal the end of this tangent you’ve both embarked on, one for which you somehow find a renewed desire to see through.

“Oh, come on, Nanami,” you playfully prod, happy to have narrowly evaded the previous, proverbial hot seat, “surely it’s not the worst thing imaginable, this profession that is fortunate enough to have a hotshot like you…”

A bashful chuckle escapes him as he drops his gaze down to where his hand fiddles with his gleaming watch strap, a now recognizable sign of a crack of timidity in his otherwise stoic armor.

“Asset and wealth management,” he responds. “And no, I suppose it’s not all bad, but it’s definitely not all good either.”

Ever so slightly, you push the plate holding your appetizers back his way, not unlike Nanami did just mere minutes ago.

“Tell me about the ‘not all bad’ part.”

“The money,” he declares without missing a beat, then glances at you over the rim of his cup, his eyes conveying the most solemnity they have all evening, drawing an earnest laugh from you.

“Yeah, I've audited firms like yours before. You all generally seem to be doing alright in that regard.”

It’s with a fleeting, yet delightful smile that he registers the reaction he’s elicited from you. You yield to the curious urge of following up:

“What do you dislike about it?”

You notice the tension in his jaw, the first time you find him to be anything approaching a true reticence that momentarily makes you wonder if you haven’t overstepped with your prompting.

But just as you think to give him an out, Nanami speaks again.

“I’ve been questioning a lot of things lately… One of them being a system whose existence is solely to make incredibly well-off people and entities even wealthier, and how that is valued above so many others without providing much societal value in itself...”

As he pauses, a quiet, thoughtful hum arises from you, to which he responds by throwing a glance your way, clouded eyes refocusing as if he’s just pulling himself back to the moment.

“Then I open my eyes, and it’s already Monday again,” he adds with a forlorn curve of his lips.

“Oh yeah, that happens a lot to me too,” you respond, mirroring his half-joke with a light laugh.

This pause barely has time to settle, a breath shortly held and lightly released.

“The truth is that I’m good at my job,” he continues, “and the irony is that the most efficient way to escape the system is to play into it until you have enough leverage to exit it. So for now, and until then, I’ll stay put.”

For now, and until then…

Nanami’s words carry a certain familiarity to you, one of a sentiment you can relate to all too well, a merging path, even from your differing vantage points.

You don’t get to linger on it any longer—it’s not a false start this time around, when the drummer kicks off a beat, but the earnest, recognizable opening belonging to the iconic 5/4 time signature from Take Five.

The piano jumps in shortly thereafter, driving the groove with its repeated two-chord trot before the bass follows its lead, forming the background over which the alto sax enters to layer its main melody.

There’s something almost hypnotic you’ve always found in this track, that you find still now—a reliably comfortable door through which you’ve escaped many a time before, as you sought to draw from Dave Brubeck’s syncopated piano pattern, to which you’ve all too often added your own, softly subtle variations. It’s the kind of safe track that always allowed you to slip into improvising on the technical feel, the pulse, and tempo of the piece, rather than chasing speedy, complex instrumentation.

You feel Nanami lean towards you ever so slightly, like he’s done so often now, and you instinctively mirror him to meet him halfway.

“I’ve been trying to pinpoint exactly what it is about this kind of piece,” he says, just loud enough for you to hear over the music. “Something in this genre that I find so captivating: the soaring melodies, the driving beat, the intricate harmonies—it coalesces into something truly special. I can’t seem to put a name to it.”

Nanami’s understated question hangs between you, the subtle seed of a definition, and somewhere within the brief lull, you find his curiosity to inspire you to articulate your perspective.

“I think it’s like you said—we live within rigid systems that have permeated nearly all aspects of society. Everything is methodically, meticulously, almost oppressively catalogued. Everything has a rule, every rule has a name, and very rarely do we have a choice in aligning ourselves to the kind of standards that seek to dictate everything, right down to what art can be, to what music can be.

You idly tap your finger along the rim of the appetizer platter, keeping time with the tune’s uneven rhythm.

“Take this piece, for example: five beats for each measure. For so long, most of Western music somehow just had to be four beats per measure, with perhaps the waltz being one of the few rare exceptions. Anything else wasn’t considered harmonic and was treated as inherently dissonant. Jazz finds its roots under a system that had one group domineering over another, and people deciding to create something for themselves rather than adhering to this interpretation of sheet music yielded by the dominant society.”

Nanami nods slowly, and you watch his eyes narrow in focus as they fix on the stage, taking in the rhythm, just as the percussionist enacts his solo. Smooth as silk, the performer’s stick glides over the right-hand snare with a steady torrent of single and double strokes. Much like the pianist setting the repeated phrase, the drummer’s performance is a study in spontaneous development, rather than speed or even technique.

“Improvisation,” Nanami echoes. “The bending of rules, the going against the grain. It's similar to how the improvised solo became a standard for rock music.”

“Yes, and that's also something that came about around the 60s and under the influence of Jazz. Yet, as you’ve pointed out, that improvisation itself was also later made standard—”

“Which goes against the original purpose…” Nanami cuts in, quickly picking up on your thread of thought.

“It kind of does, right? There will probably always remain a certain level of fixation with structure and standardization, which, granted, does have its place in the world…”

You trail off into a brief pause as the saxophone finds a smooth re-entry on the heels of the drum solo, sending a ripple of applause through the small crowd. Once the hum of conversation returns, you seek to circle back to Nanami’s original reflection.

“But I think there’s a certain acceptance of the disruption of expectations that is unique in Jazz as far as musical genres go, that fights vehemently against this over-indexing for the formulaic, that seeks to reclaim an otherwise stifled creativity and freedom. And if even just the tiniest part of you seeks out this kind of freedom, then—”

When you glance over to Nanami, you don’t expect to find him to have turned his attention, to have physically turned himself towards you. It must have been sometime during your moment of distracted monologue, you think, that he settled his forearm over the table like this, that he angled his shoulders in your direction, with his lingering gaze sharpened and his glass seemingly forgotten in his hands.

And as much as logic would have you avert your gaze, as much as a force of habit would usually have you shy away from this heightened level of perception, the nameless, disarming sentiment you sense being telegraphed by Nanami only further compels you to finish your thought.

“…then you might find yourself drawn to anything that emulates these values.”

Time warps around you as you hold each other’s gaze. Nanami’s eyes linger, realization catching in his eyes like honey in glass.

Then, a short, sudden chuckle breaks from him.

His head tips forward ever so slightly, and his shoulders loosen before relaxing into a light shake, as he lets out an earnest laugh. His gaze drops to his cup, around which he adjusts his grip as if he’s just remembering its existence.

You narrow your eyes at him, words of inquiry sitting right at the tip of your tongue, thwarted by your newfound fascination in observing Nanami Kento laughing.

You can’t help but mirror his chuckles with a nervous one of your own.

“What is it?” you ask tentatively, wishing in this moment that you could read his mind.

Nanami carefully places his drink on the table, his fingers leaving prints where the condensation clings to the glass, with something serious but no less sincere finding place in his eyes by the time they meet yours once more.

“You shouldn’t sell yourself short. You’re definitely a pianist,” he states.

It’s a simple, sincere affirmation, said so candidly and without fanfare. And yet, it comes to utterly disrupt the equilibrium you’ve worked so hard to maintain for years now.

For a radiant moment, you almost believe him.

Vestiges of an odd sentiment stick with you throughout the evening, a discordant feeling manifesting as a small pressure, a tightening at the base of your throat. It follows you long after you and Nanami part at the train station at the end of the evening, and much later still, after you’ve returned to your apartment.

It’s a sensation that takes on a certain weight you try to shake, as you shower, as you run through your skin care routine, and as you settle into your bed, reduced to a low hum that takes a backseat to your somnolence.

Only once you’ve succumbed to sleep does it resurge with a vengeance, in the form of that one recurring dream, a familiar one that consistently finds you sitting at what looks like a piano, one that seems to stretch infinitely both to the left and to the right.

This time marks an exception.

This time, the keys don’t look like bared teeth as they usually do, ready to devour and destroy anything that comes within their vicinity.

This time, and for the first time, your arms don’t feel bogged down as though they are cuffed in a cinder block sitting on your lap.

Some usual horror elements of the nightmare remain—you’re still forced into both the role of performer and spectator in this familiar sequence, whereby an eerie, unrecognizable cacophony of sounds plays, with ivory and black keys moving on their own accord. And still, despite your lack of physical shackles, you can’t seem to order your mind to bring your fingers up to the keys, to move your deep-toned hands to hover beyond where they remain suspended in the foreground instead.

But when the tune inevitably ends, you can feel it, for the first time in ages—it’s a feeling so foreign in this context yet so familiar in your memory, a low hum of reassurance against the backdrop of regret, a glimmer of hope as thin as the sliver lines of orange that snake through your curtain, signaling the beginning of the dawn you open your eyes to.

It’s a tentatively hopeful spirit that perhaps one day you could fix the discord yourself.

That perhaps the next step you take in faith won’t immediately betray you.

And that perhaps one day you could be the one playing on your own again.

You almost believe it.

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