The train hummed through the fog like a low note on a cello.
Ren Hayami sat by the window, violin case balanced on his knees, watching the gray countryside blur past. The sky looked heavy, as if the world itself were holding its breath.
It had been a year since he'd last played.
A year since the night the music stopped.
A year since Airi died.
His reflection in the glass barely resembled him anymore—eyes dulled to ash, hair longer than before, and a faint red scar running across his left hand. It used to be a musician's hand. Now it trembled at the thought of touching strings.
The train slowed. The voice over the intercom was distant, almost melodic:
"Next stop—Kanezono Academy Station."
Ren's stomach twisted. He'd promised himself never to play again. But Airi's voice still haunted his dreams—soft, trembling, whispering "Finish the song, Ren."
The Scarlet Strings.
Her final piece.
The academy appeared like something out of a memory: pale stone towers wrapped in ivy, standing atop a hill shrouded in mist. Beyond the gates, the faint hum of piano keys drifted through the air—notes that shouldn't have been audible from this distance.
Ren hesitated at the entrance. The plaque read:
KANEZONO ACADEMY OF MUSIC
"Where sound becomes the soul."
He almost turned back. Then he noticed something impossible.
A red string—thin as silk—was tied around his left wrist. It trailed through the gate, vanishing into the fog ahead.
He didn't remember tying it.
Inside, the halls echoed like empty cathedrals. Students moved in pairs, laughing, carrying instruments like extensions of their bodies. Ren felt like an intruder—an echo among melodies.
At the end of the corridor stood a girl with silver hair, her fingers brushing the keys of an old piano. The song she played was delicate and aching.
Ren froze.
He knew that melody.
The Scarlet Strings.
The same notes Airi had written—the ones she'd played the night she fell from the stage.
"Where… where did you learn that?" Ren asked, his voice cracking.
The girl turned. Her eyes were distant, pale as frost.
"Oh. I just… dreamed it."
That night, Ren couldn't sleep. The dorm walls seemed to hum faintly, as if whispering the remnants of forgotten performances.
He opened his violin case for the first time in months. The strings gleamed faintly in the moonlight—taut, expectant. He plucked one gently.
The note hung in the air, trembling.
Then, somewhere deep in the hall, another violin answered him—playing the same note, perfectly in sync.
Ren's breath caught. The sound came from nowhere and everywhere at once.
And then, faintly, behind the walls, he heard her voice—Airi's voice—singing the next line of Scarlet Strings.
"Ren… can you hear it? The music never stopped."
The windowpane cracked. The violin string snapped.
And from the broken note came a whisper that didn't belong to the living.
"Welcome back… to Kanezono."