VOLUME #2 - EPISODE 11[Two-Part Finale - Part One]
[NARRATOR: There's a specific kind of dread that comes from watching multiple disasters converge toward a single point. Like seeing cars speeding toward an intersection where the traffic lights have all gone dark. Today, we witness three separate crises—a father and son's fragile reconciliation, a piano prodigy's unraveling performance anxiety, and a teacher's complete psychological collapse—all heading toward the same inevitable collision. The Winter Festival. Where everything that's been carefully held together is about to spectacularly fall apart.]
The Festival That Nobody Should Have Agreed To
Monday morning arrived with posters plastered across every available surface at Jeremy High: WINTER FESTIVAL - THIS SATURDAYPERFORMANCES! FOOD! FUN! FUNDRAISING!SIGN UP TO PERFORM IN THE MAIN AUDITORIUM!
Riyura stared at one of the posters with a sense of impending doom he couldn't quite articulate.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: Festivals at Jeremy High are always disasters. Last year's Spring Festival ended with the gymnasium flooding and Principal Jeremy achieving temporary flight via espresso overdose. The year before that, someone's "cultural demonstration" resulted in the fire department being called three separate times. Why do we keep doing this? Of course I was never there for those events... sucks to be me I guess. Just would of been so much fun for me to cause even more chaos, than what was already chaos enough!]
His thoughts were interrupted by Keiko Pianissimo appearing beside him like a particularly enthusiastic ghost.
"RIYURA!" Keiko's eyes were even brighter than usual, almost manic. "Look at this! A festival! With performances! Musical opportunities! Fortissimo excitement combined with crescendo anxiety and undertones of vermillion terror!"
"You seem more anxious than excited," Riyura observed carefully. "Nonsense! I'm allegro enthusiastic! Watch—I'm signing up to perform a piano recital!" He pulled out a pen and wrote his name on the performance sheet with flourishing strokes.
Keiko Pianissimo - Piano Recital (Classical Repertoire) Riyura's stomach dropped. "Keiko, are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, playing in front of a huge audience—"
"It's PERFECT!" Keiko's smile was too wide, his fingers already playing an invisible piano frantically. "I need to prove I can still do it! Need to show that I'm not broken! That the Vienna incident was just a diminished seventh anomaly and I'm completely forte functional now!"
"The Vienna incident?" Miyaka appeared on Riyura's other side, her curiosity piqued. Keiko's smile froze for just a microsecond. "Nothing! Ancient history! Very pianissimo irrelevant!"
But Riyura had caught it—that flicker of absolute terror behind Keiko's manic enthusiasm. The same terror he'd seen in the music room when Keiko's hands had started shaking.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: This is a bad idea. This is a spectacularly bad idea. I should stop him. Should say something. But who am I to tell someone else their coping mechanisms are unhealthy? I'm wearing four hairclips today and my bow tie is so crooked it's basically perpendicular. I'm barely holding myself together. How can I help him?]
Yakamira appeared with his phone, his pale gray eyes scanning something on the screen with analytical precision. "Brother," he said quietly, pulling Riyura aside. "I researched Keiko Pianissimo last night."
"That's borderline stalking. That's liertally against the law. I don't why but It's against the law so... no do that."
"It's protective information gathering. There's a difference." Yakamira showed Riyura the screen. "Three years ago, Keiko was a child prodigy. International performances. Competition wins. Called 'the next Mozart' by major music publications."
He scrolled down. "Then this happened." The article headline made Riyura's blood run cold: CHILD PRODIGY KEIKO PIANISSIMO SUFFERS BREAKDOWN AT VIENNA COMPETITION - ATTACKS PIANO MID-PERFORMANCE
Below it, a photo. Keiko—younger, eyes wild with panic, hands bleeding, being physically restrained by security while a shattered piano sat on stage behind him.
"He was hospitalized for six months," Yakamira continued quietly. "Diagnosed with severe performance anxiety, PTSD, synesthesia so overwhelming it became debilitating. His parents—both renowned musicians—essentially abandoned their son. Couldn't handle having a 'broken' prodigy. And he was left with his aunt garry for the rest of his struggled life."
Riyura felt sick. "And now he's volunteered to perform. In front of hundreds of people." "Yes," Yakamira said. "Which is either incredibly brave or suicidally stupid."
"Maybe both," Riyura whispered, watching Keiko across the hallway, still smiling that too-bright smile, still playing an invisible piano with increasing franticness.
Meanwhile... The Father and Son Who Couldn't Heal Fast Enough
In Classroom 2-B, Yachaziku Muzaki stood at the blackboard, chalk in his trembling hand, staring at a mathematics equation he'd written fifteen minutes ago and completely forgotten about.
Students watched with varying degrees of concern and discomfort. "Sensei?" someone asked carefully. "Are we supposed to solve that equation or...?"
Muzaki blinked slowly, like returning from somewhere very far away. "Equation. Yes. X equals... something. Negative B. Square root. Variables. Numbers that represent..."
He trailed off, staring at the chalk dust on his fingers.
"...represent things that can be solved. Unlike people. People can't be solved. People just... break. And stay broken. And pretend they're functional while carrying twelve names that won't stop—"
He stopped abruptly, realizing he'd said that last part out loud. The classroom had gone completely silent. Muzaki set down the chalk carefully, like it might explode if handled incorrectly.
"I need to—" He gestured vaguely. "—be elsewhere. Read the textbook. Page... a page. One of them." He walked out. Just left. Again.
In the hallway, Kaiju Minuwa stood waiting. He'd been doing that lately—appearing near his father's classroom between periods, not approaching, just... present. Observing. Trying to figure out if their tentative reconciliation was real or just another fragile thing that would shatter under pressure.
Muzaki saw him and stopped. "Kaiju." "Dad." They stood in awkward silence—two people who shared blood and trauma and years of distance, trying to figure out how to exist in the same space.
"You left class again," Kaiju said quietly. "I know." "That's the third time this week." "I know." "Are you—" Kaiju struggled with the words. "Are you going to be okay? Can you do this? The teaching thing? The being-present thing?"
Muzaki's hands shook harder. "I don't know," he admitted. "I'm trying. But some days the trying isn't enough. Some days the guilt is louder than my ability to function. And I—"
His voice broke. "I'm failing you again. Trying to be present while being unable to actually be present. Making you watch me fall apart just like when you were eleven."
Kaiju's carefully constructed emotional control cracked slightly.
"Stop," he said, his voice tight. "Stop deciding what I can handle. Stop making my choices for me. I'm here because I chose to be here. I knew you were broken. I came anyway."
"Why?" Muzaki asked desperately. "Why would you choose this? Choose watching me drown?" "Because," Kaiju said, and something in his eyes softened, "I'm drowning too. And maybe drowning together is better than drowning alone."
They stood in the hallway—father and son, both broken, both trying so hard it was painful to witness—and didn't know what to say next.
[NARRATOR: This is the thing about healing: it's not linear. It's not clean. Some days you make progress. Other days you regress so far you forget what progress looked like. And all you can do is keep showing up, keep trying, keep existing alongside each other despite every instinct screaming to run.]
The Intervention That Came Too Late
Lunch period found Riyura, Yakamira, Miyaka, Subarashī, Shoehead, and Socksiku gathered in an empty classroom for an emergency meeting. "We have a problem," Riyura announced. "Several problems, actually, all converging this Saturday."
"The festival," Miyaka said. "Specifically, Keiko's piano performance," Yakamira added. "Which is going to be a disaster," Shoehead finished, eating what appeared to be a leather boot.
Socksiku, sitting nearby and nervously consuming a wool sock, nodded. "I've been watching him. The way he eats sheet music is getting more frantic. More desperate. He's not coping—he's barely containing a complete breakdown."
"We have to stop him from performing," Miyaka said. "Right? Tell him it's okay to back out?"
"We tried," Subarashī said, unusually serious. "This morning. He just smiled that terrifying smile and said his chromatic courage was fortissimo functional."
"Translation: he's forcing himself to do something that will probably destroy him," Yakamira said flatly. Riyura stood at the window, staring out at the winter-gray sky, feeling the weight of everyone's brokenness pressing down on him.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: I'm supposed to be the one who helps. The one who saves people. But I can't save Keiko from himself. Can't save Muzaki from his guilt. Can't save Kaiju from watching his father suffer. Can't even save myself from my own father's shadow. What good am I if I can't actually help anyone?]
"Riyura?" Miyaka's voice was gentle. "What do you think we should do?" He turned from the window, and his friends saw something they rarely saw—Riyura looking genuinely lost.
"I don't know," he admitted. "For once in my life, I don't know." Before anyone could respond, the classroom door burst open. Keiko stood there, breathing hard, his eyes wild, his fingers playing frantically across invisible keys.
"I need to practice!" he said, his voice higher than usual. "The festival is in five days! Five days! That's 120 hours! 7,200 minutes! 432,000 seconds! And I haven't practiced enough! Haven't proven I'm not broken! Haven't shown that Vienna was just a dissonant anomaly and I'm completely—"
"Keiko," Riyura stepped forward carefully. "You don't have to prove anything. You don't have to perform if you're not ready—" "I AM READY!" Keiko screamed, and everyone flinched.
His hands were shaking violently now, his perfect composure shattering in real-time.
"I have to be ready! If I'm not ready that means I'm still broken! Still the failed prodigy my parents threw away! Still the moron who attacked a piano because the music got too loud and I couldn't breathe and everyone was watching and—and—"
He couldn't finish. Just stood there, trembling, tears streaming down his face while his hands continued their frantic invisible piano playing. Shoehead slowly walked over. Set down his shoe. Gently took Keiko's hands in his own—stopping the frantic movement.
"You're eating sheet music at an increasing rate," Shoehead said quietly. "Started with one page a day. Now you're up to five. Six if you're stressed. That's not healthy coping. That's approaching crisis."
"You can't judge—"
"I eat shoes because I've processed my trauma enough to manage it," Shoehead interrupted. "You're eating music because you're trying to consume the thing that traumatized you. Trying to take control by literally eating it. That's different. That's dangerous."
Keiko's legs gave out. He sat down hard on the floor, still crying.
"I can't keep running," he whispered. "Can't keep hiding. If I don't face this—if I don't perform—then Vienna wins. The breakdown wins. And I'll stay broken forever."
"Or," Riyura said gently, sitting down beside him, "you could choose not to perform. Give yourself time. Heal properly instead of forcing yourself into situations that trigger your trauma."
"Time doesn't heal this," Keiko said, his voice hollow. "Three years didn't heal it. Therapy didn't heal it. Nothing heals it. The symphony in my head never stops. The pressure never eases. The only thing that might help is proving I can do it. Can play in front of people without falling apart."
"And if you can't?" Yakamira asked, not unkindly. Keiko looked up with eyes that held nothing but despair. "Then at least I'll know for certain that I'm too broken to fix."
[NARRATOR: This is the trap of performance anxiety combined with untreated trauma: the belief that one successful performance will magically heal years of psychological damage. That forcing yourself into the fire will somehow make you fireproof. It doesn't work that way. It never works that way. But telling that to someone desperate for proof they're not broken? Impossible.]
Thursday Night: The Practice Session That Proved Everything Wrong
The music room, late evening. Most students had gone home. Just Keiko and the piano and the weight of expectations he'd placed on himself. Riyura watched from the doorway—he'd been following Keiko lately, worried, unable to help but unwilling to leave him alone.
Keiko sat at the piano, sheet music arranged in front of him. A competition piece. Complex. Demanding. The kind of piece that required absolute technical precision and emotional control.
He placed his fingers on the keys. Took a breath. Began playing. For the first thirty seconds, it was perfect. Flawless technique, beautiful tone, the kind of playing that proved he genuinely was a prodigy.
Then his hands started shaking. The notes became uneven. Timing slipped. Harmonies clashed. Keiko's breathing accelerated. His eyes widened with panic.
"No no no," he whispered. "Not again. Not again. Please not again—" He kept playing, trying to push through, but the shaking worsened. The music became discordant. Wrong. The sound of someone losing a battle with their own body.
Finally, with a desperate cry, Keiko slammed his hands down on the keys—a horrible, violent chord—and stood so abruptly the piano bench fell backward.
"I can't!" he screamed at the piano, at himself, at the universe. "I CAN'T DO IT! Three years and I still can't—" He grabbed his sheet music and started tearing it. Ripping pages into smaller and smaller pieces with increasing violence.
Then he started eating them. Shoving torn fragments into his mouth, chewing frantically, tears streaming down his face. "If I consume it—" he gasped between bites, "—if I absorb the music—maybe it'll stop being louder than me—maybe I can—"
Riyura finally moved, crossing the room, grabbing Keiko's hands before he could eat more paper. "Stop. Keiko, stop. This isn't helping."
"Nothing helps!" Keiko sobbed. "Nothing! The music never stops! Never gets quieter! It just keeps playing and playing and I can't escape it and performing was supposed to give me control but I don't have control! I never had control! I'm just—I'm just—"
"Broken," Riyura finished quietly. "You think you're just broken. And that performing perfectly is the only way to prove you're not." Keiko stared at him with red, swollen eyes.
"Aren't I? Broken?"
"Yes," Riyura said. "But so am I. So is basically everyone at this school I've met as a close friend now. Being broken doesn't mean you need to prove you're fixed. It means you need to learn to exist while broken. And forcing yourself to perform when you're clearly not ready? That's not healing. That's self-destruction."
Keiko laughed—a terrible, broken sound. "Then what do I do? Cancel? Admit defeat? Prove my parents were right to abandon me because I couldn't handle the pressure?"
"You prove," Riyura said firmly, "that your worth isn't defined by your ability to perform. That you're a person, not a piano-playing machine. That surviving trauma is more important than conquering it perfectly."
They sat in the music room surrounded by torn sheet music, and Keiko cried like someone who'd been holding it together for three years and finally couldn't anymore.
Friday Morning! Everything Converges
The day before the festival arrived with the atmosphere of an approaching storm. Keiko showed up to school with dark circles under his eyes, his hands bandaged where he'd apparently practiced until his fingers bled.
"I'm performing tomorrow," he announced to anyone who asked. "I have to. There's no other option."
Muzaki had another breakdown during third period—just stopped mid-sentence, started crying about failing his students, and had to be escorted out by Kaiju, who looked like he was aging in real-time from stress.
And Riyura received a text from his mother: Your father is coming to the festival tomorrow. He wants to see you perform. Please don't make a scene.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: Perfect. Absolutely perfect. My traumatized friend is going to have a breakdown on stage. My teacher is falling apart. My brother's reconciliation with his father is hanging by a thread. And my father—the idiot who killed a person and bought his way out of consequences—is coming to watch me pretend everything's fine. This festival is going to be a disaster of absolutely epic proportions.]
That afternoon, Riyura found himself back on the school rooftop—the place where everything seemed to happen, where truths emerged whether anyone wanted them to or not.
Yakamira joined him without being asked. "Tomorrow's going to be bad," Yakamira said. "I know." "Multiple disasters converging simultaneously." "I know."
"And you're going to try to fix all of them."
"I know." Yakamira was quiet for a moment. "You can't save everyone, brother. We've discussed this." "I know that too," Riyura said quietly. "But I have to try anyway. Because if I don't—if I just stand by and watch people fall apart—then what's the point of any of this? What's the point of surviving if you don't use that survival to help others survive too?"
"Tomorrow," Riyura said, "is going to be a disaster. But maybe—just maybe—we can make it a disaster where people survive. Where broken people choose to exist despite being broken. Where—"
His phone buzzed. Another text from his mother: He's bringing flowers. Says he wants to apologize for last time. Please, Riyura. Please just accept them. It'll be easier if you just accept them.
Riyura's hands clenched around his phone so hard the screen cracked slightly. "Or maybe," he finished quietly, "tomorrow everything just falls apart completely and there's nothing any of us can do to stop it."
The sun set over Jeremy High, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple and that particular blue that exists only in the space between hope and resignation.
Tomorrow would bring the Winter Festival. Tomorrow would bring performances and breakdowns and confrontations that had been building for years.
Tomorrow would prove whether broken people could hold each other up or if they'd all just collapse together.
[NARRATOR: And so we end Part One of our finale. All the pieces in place. All the disasters aligned. Tomorrow, the music plays. Tomorrow, the teacher breaks. Tomorrow, Disasters happen. Part Two awaits. Bring tissues. You're going to need them.]
TO BE CONTINUED...