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Sakurauchi Riko wants to disappear.
That is a fact.
Uranohoshi Girls’ School has a music club, something that her mother pointed out to her oh so hopefully, wishing nothing but the best for her daughter.
Riko will not join it.
That is another fact.
That bright, bright girl with the sparkling eyes wants to be an idol. Riko won’t – can’t – be a school idol.
That is yet another fact?
She regards the instrument shrouded in burgundy velvet and highlighted in silver-blue moonlight, standing so innocently next to her window, and her long nails cut crescents into the softness of her palms. After everything that’s happened, everything that she’s trying to run away from, what right does she have to play it? Why does she want to play it for the brilliant girl that pleaded with her to become an idol – someone as plain, unassuming, disappointing as her?
“I’ve lost my sound,” is what she’s told her mother as an excuse for avoiding any real practice, for putting off beginning her lessons again, but in truth the sound of the piano is razor-sharp in a way that bites at her ears and makes her head pound painfully in the contrast between the clean bright piano music and the hollow purring emptiness in her head, all that noise that only helps her try to blur her thoughts away.
So Riko plays, persistently, aimlessly, long nails clicking against the ivory in a way that would once make her cringe and run for a nail clipper. Even when her hands shake and her fingers buckle, she considers the dull, throbbing pain of her headache and thinks that this is a rather fitting punishment for letting everyone down.
“The door of dreams, huh?” Riko whispers to herself, room lit only by the dim glow of her phone screen. She wonders why her index finger is shaking when she hits play.
And those girls – they shine. How could Riko possibly be from the same school? Why is Takami Chika so bright, like them, with that inexplicable draw to her?
The music starts again, delicate, tentative, and her mind feels so clear.
Riko dares to hum while she cuts her nails, files with rhythmic, soothing motions, her voice meek and quiet, feeling the vibration deep in her throat and along her tongue. She tugs off the heavy dust cover, scoots the bench into its proper place, and gently, almost fearfully, lifts the lid.
Moonlit ivory smiles back. With a purpose restored, the keyboard doesn’t feel mocking, even when she settles her fingers to the keys.
“I’ve been looking for the door of dreams,” she sings, voice wavering but fingers steady, and it feels so good.
Everything will be okay, Riko thinks when she opens her eyes and meets Chika’s gaze. Everything is going to be okay, because Sakurauchi Riko has finally resolved her discordant, fearful heart.
“I was searching for our connection,” Chika sings back to her, eyes brighter than the light of the moon, and her heart closes off a perfect, clear cadence.
Sakurauchi Riko wants to be an idol, in order to shine so brightly on that stage, in order to find her sound after so long in raw silence.
That is a fact.