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A night of restless sleep is what brings Raeliana wandering the corridors somewhere past midnight.
It’s not anything new, unfortunately. She’s used to it, whether it’s out of stress, something on her mind or… anything, really. The corridor is lit with the soft glow of the lit candle she carries, a thick shawl draped over her shoulders as she passes door by door. Raeliana knows that not many servants are awake at that time, save for any guards—in fact, she has an inkling that Adam’s awake somewhere, somehow; when did he ever get sleep, now that she thought about it?
Noah, too, must also be asleep. As far as she’s aware, he hasn’t been as busy lately, although it’s not like she’s overly familiar with what a duke’s duties are in the first place. Raeliana sighs at the thought of him, even if it’s a touch less exasperated than she thought it would be.
It hasn’t been long since she asked him to break off their engagement, not long since he had insisted otherwise and asked her to stay. And even as they had just sent His Holiness—she’s not quite used to calling him Grandpa yet—his way earlier that morning, she still sensed some sort of unease between them, no matter how… himself Noah would act. Even a blind person could tell that Noah liked her. And Raeliana… still isn’t sure how to deal with that, her own feelings toward him aside.
Beatrice was meant to be the protagonist, not her; and combined with the fact that her soul is struggling to connect with her body, Raeliana can’t help but feel… somewhat lost. It’s frustrating to admit, not knowing what to do.
As she continues down the corridors, Raeliana pointedly ignores the fact that she’s exploring the part of the estate where Noah’s bedroom isn’t located once she realizes it. Of course, she doesn’t mean to, it just happened to turn out like that. If anything, she’d rather not encounter him at all, let alone in a situation where they’d be alone with one another. What would she even say to him? The awkwardness of that alone convinces her to try and avoid it altogether.
Then again… has she ever been to this part of the estate herself? Raeliana doesn’t think she recognizes the paintings hanging on the walls, nor the doors nor the sights that lay outside the windows. The regular entrance is all the way on the other side of the building, after all—maybe that had something to do with it?
A door she almost passes by is open slightly ajar, the gap small enough to be unnoticable if glossed over. Regardless, when the light of the flames filter into the room on the other side, Raeliana becomes curious. She goes to push the door open a bit further, its old hinges creaking slowly, and she pokes her head inside to see while holding the candle beyond her.
It seems to be some sort of waiting or lounge room, or at least a place meant to entertain. It’s complete with a few sofas surrounding a low table, bookshelves along the sides, wine glasses and dishes in cabinets, and finally a window in the back, the curtains drawn in front of it. Raeliana sets down her candle atop one of the shelves, a part of her noting the thin layer of dust on its surface. She supposes not many used this room then. Aside from the servants and guards, the only residents of this home were Noah and, later on, herself after all.
She goes to the curtains first, gripping the thick fabric in her fists before pulling them apart. Moonlight spills into the room, illuminating the corners in a silvery-blue color. Taking a step back, she places on her hands on her hips, surveying the room once more. She takes in the more apparent details—the patterned wallpaper, the rug design, the color of the wood. She also notes the rest of the dust in the room, pouting a little at the sight.
Raeliana pauses then, head turned to the side. Blinks.
Was that—was that a piano?
Indeed, merely tucked away discreetly into a corner was a piano, and a rather large one too. She makes her way over, one hand reaching out to brush her fingertips along the smooth wood. It’s old, Raeliana quickly notes, most likely an antique. Compared to the rest to the room, it stands out, its color a shade more red than the rest of the dark wood used for the furniture, and scratches along the metal music desk that sits on the piano’s lid.
Her next thought has her wonder if Noah knows how to play. There aren’t many other reasons for him to own one if he doesn’t. He is technically part of the royal family; knowing how to play an instrument was probably part of their learning curriculum growing up. But if he did, though, then Raeliana has never heard him play before. She can’t even imagine him doing it for fun—maybe he played to entertain guests when he was younger, sure, but not really anymore.
A stool is tucked beneath the instrument, and Raeliana can’t help but indulge on the silly whim that comes to her. She drags it out from underneath, smoothing out her dress as she sits, and lifts up the fallboard.
The keys seem to be clean as far as she can tell, but when was the last time they were actually played? Since first coming here, she doesn’t recall a time where she ever heard the sounds of a piano floating about the estate. For a moment, Raeliana drums her fingers on the wood part of the piano, contemplating. Maybe this was a stupid idea. She didn’t want to disturb anyone nearby, of course. Even so, Raeliana places one finger down on a white key in the middle and presses.
Plink. A single, lone note rings throughout the room, and Raeliana retracts her hand a second later. It’s a muted sound—steady, but not as loud as she initially thought it would be, and she grows a tad more daring from it. Now, she spreads her fingers, placing both of her hands upon the keys, and then presses one more. A chorus of notes sound then, and if by muscle memory alone, Raeliana moves her fingers into different positions and presses again.
It’s not an actual piece, far from it actually; but, at the very least, it doesn’t sound as awful as she expects either. As Eunha, she knew practically nothing about music, let alone how to play an actual instrument and make it sound good. However, as Raeliana McMillan, the daughter of a baron, she supposes that the previous owner of her body had some piano skills as well, even as she doubts she’ll be able to recall any actual sheet music from memory.
And so, she plays on, a lonesome, slow melody in an empty room, unaware of the presence just outside in the hallway, listening in silently.
Noah knows better than to eavesdrop, much less so openly like this. And yet, here he stands, his back to the wall and a partly open door next to him, the slow notes of a grand piano spilling out from the inside. His arms are crossed over his chest, expression thoughtful, but nonetheless careful to keep his breathing quiet and stand still.
He wants to say that it was mere curiosity that led him here. At first, he thought it was a servant merely passing nearby his room, if the subtle orange glow of a candle was any indication. But then he saw it linger beneath his door a moment or two longer, and reconsidered. Who else would be up so late? He got his answer when he peeked outside, just enough for his eyes to see clearly, and caught sight of a long skirt trailing and disappearing around a corner, one that he knew for a fact didn’t belong to a maid.
Perhaps he should have considered the possibility of it being Raeliana sooner. She is, as much as Noah hates to admit it, an enigma of sorts. ...No, not enigma, but rather… someone out of reach—a feeling he has more often than he prefers to. Chasing, yearning.
He knows Raeliana keeps her fair share of secrets away from him; on one hand, he wants to respect her privacy, to let her share them with him at her own pace. But at the same time, he wonders why —he wants her to be able to trust him, to be that confidant for her, and she already does to a certain extent, but not completely. Not yet.
He listens to the slow melody, tentative in its tempo, but one he finds lovely regardless. His gaze drifts to the open door, knowing that he is very well capable of opening it wider for himself, to watch Raeliana play the instrument he himself has not touched in years. Even so, Noah doesn’t, instead paying attention to how she plays, and letting himself imagine the scene instead. He’s afraid that, if he does, she’ll stop and won’t play again, too surprised at the sight of him or too flustered to play in front of an audience out of the blue.
The piano notes continue to spill from the room, but by then Noah decides to take his leave. His footsteps are quiet, not wanting to disturb Raeliana in what she’s doing, and he only glances back once towards the room. A pensive touch is added to his expression, but then it’s gone as quickly as it came as he heads back to his bedroom and away from the piano and its player.
It’s only a couple days later since playing the piano that night, but Raeliana finds herself in the same room again, the main difference being that it’s during the morning this time.
She stares down at the instrument, hand resting atop the wooden fallboard in thought. Again, she had come on a whim, and she considers taking a walk outside with Adam accompanying her later. She had no reason to come here, yet her feet arrived here anyway. Raeliana exhales through her nose, shoulders slouching.
“Do you play, Raeliana?”
She starts and whirls around, eyes wide until her attention lands on Noah in the doorway, looking at her. There’s a small grin on his face as he crosses his arms, one she assumes is meant to reassure her, but she can’t find it in herself to relax.
“Noah? I—uh,” Raeliana stumbles for a moment before remembering his question, “n—no, I don’t. I’m familiar with it for the most part, but I don’t really know any pieces by heart.”
Did he see her come in? That’s probably it. She expects him to leave the conversation at that—after all, she doesn’t really know what else to talk about at the moment, so it surprises her when she sees him stride into the room until he stops by her side, gazing down at the piano as she did before.
She feels awkward.
“Are you… busy today?” Raeliana asks, eager to not let the silence drag for too long. She thinks that the trip to the night market the other day helped lessen the tension between them, but she’s still aware of how he seems to shift his stance in place, unfolding his arms as he did.
“Hm. I have some paperwork in my study I need to look over,” he tells her, then meeting her eye, “but I can always save that for later in the day. It’s not too much trouble.”
Such remarks always struck her as a bit irresponsible in all honesty, but Raeliana knows he’s far from it as a person, so she lets it slide. “I see,” she says in return, not knowing what else to say. They’re close, she notices, arms almost brushing one another as they stand. Silence falls over them like a blanket, and she can’t help but tear her gaze away from his; they're always a degree too intense for her, these days.
Raeliana is broken out of her reverie when Noah starts moving again, this time to pull out the stool from beneath the piano and sit on it. She blinks, mouth parting. “Noah? What are you…”
“I used to play,” he starts explaining. “When I was a child, I mean. Not much anymore, though.” He lifts up the fallboard, and she lets him, watching as his fingers rest lightly on the piano keys, as if trying to remember.
She hums, expecting as much. “Why did you stop?”
“It was never a large interest of mine, to be frank—never pursued it as a passion. But,” Noah presses his hand down, and a harmony of notes sound, “my tutors made sure I was up to their standards, at any rate.”
“That’s not too surprising,” Raeliana remarks. “I didn’t… have tutors for something like this. Really, my mother taught me, although it wasn’t as if she made me learn off of music sheets. She told me how to adjust my posture, chords, and what the pedals do, but not much else beyond that.”
As she finishes, Noah begins to play a melody; it’s light and quick—lively almost, even if it not usually a word she’d attribute to someone like him at all. Even if he says he hasn’t played since he was a child, Raeliana admits to herself that he’s good, far better than her own skills anyway. It’s not a piece that she’s familiar with, let alone recall the name of—and that’s if this even is a piece in the first place—but it’s pleasant on her ears. It helps the tension leave her shoulders, and a small smile appears on her face.
Noah finishes before long, and she applauds him from behind. “It seems like you still got it,” she compliments, continuing to smile even as Noah turns around to look at her. He smiles back, but she catches the barest hint of surprise beforehand, as though he wasn’t expecting her to in the first place.
“Thank you,” he replies graciously with the inclination of his head. He then pauses for a second, thinking. He adds, “You’re free to join me if you’d like, Raeliana.”
Hm?
“Huh?”
Noah merely smiles at her.
The surprise is clear on Raeliana’s face, mouth gaping and stunned into silence. However, at this point she should be used to his antics now, and quickly recovers by clearing her throat quietly into her fist.
“I mean, er—sure, I’ll join you. I can do that.” Noah gestures to the spot next to him, scooting over to the side to allow more room for her. She takes it, situating herself next to him, all too aware of how their knees bump against each other as she does and how she tilts her legs away from Noah’s in response. She can’t bear to glance up to see his expression now, instead keeping her attention solely on the keys in front of her.
“If not pieces, is there anything else you know?” she hears Noah ask to her right. His voice is awfully close—she thinks he might be leaning in a little, by conscious choice or not. She presses her lips into a thin line, hoping that no part of her face turns red at the realization.
“Ah, not much I’m afraid…”
A hum. “Do you know this then?”
He begins a simple melody with one hand, and Raeliana turns her gaze to follow along. His slender fingers play with ease, and for a few moments she forgets her fluster when she recognizes it—no, knows it. They have this lullaby in this world too?
Still, knowing and recognizing it still doesn’t mean she’ll be able to translate that onto the piano. He finishes, turns to her and she replies, “Uh, maybe? I’m not too sure, honestly.” She outstretches one hand of her own to rest upon the ivory keys, hesitating to find the right place to start. She presses one tentatively, pursing her lips as she presses down on the next key.
Fingers lightly rest and curl around her wrist to stop her, and she can’t help how her hand twitches upon contact. Raeliana ducks her head, her other hand on her lap balling into a fist. She thinks she can feel her ears burn.
“Relax,” Noah tells her, voice still close, and now she definitely knows her ears are burning. “We can do a duet, if you want.”
“A duet? Like together?”
“Yes.”
Raeliana considers it for a moment. Well, she’s already here, so… She makes a pout, concluding that there’s no way out of this one.
“...You won’t rush me if we do?” she decides to ask.
“Yep.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“You promise?”
Noah chuckles. “Of course. When have I ever been untrustworthy?”
She gives him a brief side-eye. “A number of times, actually,” she mutters under her breath, but both of them know it isn’t mean-spirited. He lets go of her wrist—a traitorous part of her already misses the warmth it provided—and now one hand from each rests atop the keys of the piano, ready to begin.
“We’ll take it slow,” he says, and she nods. “One, two…”
They begin together, the harmony and the melody. Like he promised, Noah doesn’t rush Raeliana, even pausing at times to allow her to find the tempo at her own pace. Once she does, they fall into an easy rhythm together—playing the lower notes, she listens to Noah’s melody, noticing the small flourishes he tends to add at the end of every other measure.
They continue onward, pleasantly content with what they have until he leans in to say, “Keep going.”
Obviously, she doesn’t know what he means by that. By this point they’re at the halfway point of the piece anyway—eventually, she decides to simply listen to him, tilting her head his way in confusion.
In hindsight, she should’ve expected it.
Her eyes widen as he suddenly starts to play a range of notes in quick succession, turning the melody into something sounding much quicker than before, but still following the overall structure. She immediately starts worrying if she’s going too slow, but seeing as how Noah doesn’t seem to give any indication of that, she assumes that it’s fine to keep going as is. Raeliana focuses on her side of the piano, intent on not falling behind, unknowing to the fair share of glances Noah sends her way next to her.
She’s the one to finish the piece, ending it on a low note. She breathes out a sigh, vaguely aware of how Noah turns his head towards her. “ Wow, ” she says, awed. Raeliana turns her head towards him too, beaming, “Noah, did you see—?”
Ah.
Noah has a smile on his face too as they meet face-to-face, but unlike his usual ones, this one holds something more akin to fondness, a softness to his gaze. It’s a type of smile that gives her a fluttering feeling in her stomach, one that she cannot squash down.
“I did,” he responds, and oh.
Loving. That’s probably the most apt way to put his expression now, and she isn’t sure how she feels about it.
Guilt, fluster, and the sheer feeling of being caught off-guard makes her to stand abruptly from her seat, nearly causing her to lose her balance in the process. The next thing she feels is shame—shame for falling for a man she may break off an engagement with anyway, one who might fall for another woman in the end instead of staying with her. Her hand slams down onto the piano keys to regain her balance, and the awful sound is enough to break Noah out of whatever thoughts he’s having; he stares at her, blinking once, twice in confusion as she stumbles away from him.
At this point, Raeliana knows for a fact that her face is red and doesn’t bother to hide it anymore.
“I’ll be taking my leave now!” she exclaims quickly, not even caring how she nearly trips over her own words. She turns on her heel, not even risking a spare glance behind her as she heads out of the room, opening and then closing it a bit more roughly than usual, causing it to slam and leave Noah all alone in the room.
Unbeknownst to her, Noah simply sits there in front of the piano, mouth open to say something, anything, yet unable to do so in the end. He had lifted his hand up, ready to reach out for her, stop her, but that too had become useless.
Instead, he reaches up to his face, covering his lips as he gazes off to the side, replaying the last few moments in his head. Raeliana’s reaction, her deep blush, her hurried manner in which she left…
Had he done something wrong? What sort of face was he making to have that sort of reaction? What did she see when she gazed back at him, when she saw his smile and his eyes?
But he already knows the answer. He already knows how deep he is, how the point of no return is already far, far behind him now. Noah chuckles to himself, aware of how he feels the tips of his ears growing warmer and warmer.
What a hopeless fool he’s become.