Kai Nakamura entered her life like a storm she hadn't seen coming.
In composition class, he sat in the back, sketching furiously while others debated chord progressions. His green eyes—sharp, haunted—met hers across the room and didn't look away.
They were paired for a duet. His fingers brushed hers on the keys, and electricity scorched through her. Not lust. Recognition. As if her soul had been waiting for his touch to remember how to feel.
"I don't compose for applause," he said quietly one evening in the empty auditorium. Moonlight sliced through the windows, painting silver scars across the floor. "I compose to remember someone who can't anymore."
Sora's throat tightened. "Who?"
"My sister. Lena." His voice cracked like thin ice. "She vanished. The police said runaway. I know better."
He didn't cry. He just stared at the piano as if it owed him answers.
Sora shared her own fracture: the night her mother left, suitcase in hand, without a goodbye. How the piano became her only constant, until even that betrayed her with silence.
They played together. Not perfectly. Desperately. Each note a confession they couldn't speak aloud.
But the music box waited on her shelf like a judge.
That night it played itself. The whisper returned, louder, raw with terror:
He's carrying death in his shadow... run...
Sora pressed her palms to her ears, sobbing. "Stop. Please stop."