Chapter Text
Javier didn’t really know about music or theory or any of that other shit. There was probably some technical term for it, some way of articulating how hearing it made him felt, but even if he did know, they still wouldn’t be able to do it justice. It being you, the woman across the street. The one who played piano with the window open.
His building was mostly Embassy employees and their families, but the complex that you lived in was popular with expats - worldly, transient kids who shelled out some extra cash so they didn’t have to stay in hostels while they waited for life to blow them wherever. Loose types, a mix of trust-fund babies globetrotting on their dad’s dime and backpackers who lived off of smuggled pot. Javier couldn’t place you, though. Not that you’d ever really met.
You were probably a teacher. He’d seen you walking through the neighborhood, carrying workbooks and juggling school supplies as you reached for your apartment keys. You were younger than him. Pretty.
He knew that you played scales in the mornings before you left. He knew the way you’d play fast when you were excited about something, how you’d force yourself to slow down before giving up and letting your fingers fly again. He knew that you tried your hand at composing, discordant little melodies that got stuck in his head for weeks. All these things he knew about you, but he didn’t know your name. He would like to know your name.
It was springtime, bleeding into summer. In Texas school would be nearly out but here in Colombia terms started in January. Javier was sitting in his apartment on one of his rare days off, musing on how much more reasonable that was, when his attention was called to the sound of lilting keys. Smiling slightly, he ducked his head as he reached for the files littering on his coffee table. He knew your repertoire pretty well by now, which songs you pulled out from the backlogs when you felt nostalgic. It was a light kind of day, and he could tell you were happy. That was always nice.
Sometimes it was soft, your fingers melting onto the notes and leaving his chest tight. Other times it seemed like you played to let something out, something angry and fast that made his hands feel sore just listening to it. He always listened, though. The small stack of vinyls and the record player sat in a corner of his apartment covered in a thin sheet of dust, Javier never having the time nor the desire to enjoy them, but he always listened to you.
He glanced over at your side of the street, your form obscured by gauzy curtains. The upright piano was wedged up against the sidewall, offering a hazy view of your profile as you leaned over the keys. You played at night a lot, and if it were anyone else he probably would’ve filed a noise complaint. That’d be a dick move, though, considering it was the only thing that helped him sleep sometimes.
You stood up a few moments later, seemingly done playing for the day, and Javier found the apartment achingly quiet in your absence. Distracting himself, he caught the cap of a pen between his teeth and let it hang from his mouth, leafing through the stacks of field reports in front of him. It was near dusk and the sun was washed out, orange and pink.
A warm breeze made its way through his living room and something fluttered near the side window, crackling and catching itself on the parted glass when a stronger wind blew by. It was a piece of yellowed paper, dried glue on the edges where it was torn out from somewhere and black notes scribbled over with pencil markings. Sheet music. Yours, probably.
Should he yell? Should he just walk over and knock on doors, hoping he found the right one? Should he say anything at all? You would probably notice if it was gone, so keeping it as some sort of weird memento was out of the question. Not that he’d do that. That’d be…. weird.
He was still standing by the window, trying to decide what to do, when he heard a voice he assumed was yours. Leaning against the edge of your small balcony, you held a stack of loose, aging papers that matched the one he had.
“Just throw it over!” you shouted, miming a paper airplane with your free hand. Javier raised an eyebrow and pushed his window up farther, the frame jamming slightly.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice raised slightly to carry over the distant din of traffic. You nodded, resolute. Fuck it. He could make a paper airplane, right?
A few minutes later and Javier had produced a serviceable, albeit a bit crooked, paper airplane. He felt bad about creasing the paper but it had seen better days and you didn’t seem to care much, so he shoved his guilt aside as he tried to remember the last time he did this. Probably high school, launching them at the back of Chuck Presby’s head during A.P Gov when he didn’t feel like doing the worksheets. High school. God, he was old.
Part of him knew how unbearably cheesy this whole thing was but honestly, he didn’t really care. It was nice, humoring these sorts of things. He could pretend he was normal for a bit.
He walked back over to the window to see you drawing your curtains open, humming the song you’d been playing earlier. You turned when you heard his footsteps, readying yourself with a wide grin. “Go ahead!”
He missed.
Really, what was he expecting? It was kind of funny though, so Javier managed an apologetic smile as you tossed your head back, eyes crinkling with a loud laugh. It sounded like bells. Like music.
Your expression was still amused when you left your balcony, down to the street where the paper airplane fell onto your front stoop. You waved good-naturedly to him from the ground, holding the sheet music victorious in your hand. Javier nodded back. So that was that.
He tracked your retreating figure out of the corner of his eye as he tried to appear busy, fussing over nothing and straightening files that had already been sorted, when he heard you call to him again. “Hey!”
Bemused, he watched as you scribbled something on the sheet-music-turned-paper-airplane, tongue poking out of the corner of your mouth in a way he found impossibly endearing. You launched it back at his window. “Catch!”
It was a straight shot, only faltering when it struck his chest and fell to the floor beside his feet. Javier could see your phone number on one of the crumpled wings, your handwriting messy and the graphite streaking against his fingers as he read the note on the other side.
Sorry you have to hear me play all the time. I promise I sound a lot better without all the traffic. Let me make it up to you?
You really had nothing to apologize for, but he smiled at your words all the same. You signed your name at the bottom and he squinted at the scrawl, testing how the letters tasted in his mouth. Grabbing a pen from where it lay on the table, Javier turned the paper over and prayed his aim would be better the second time around.
You don’t need to be sorry. Dinner?