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You truly don’t know what true desperation is until you find yourself clambering to the music room after school.
School had been exhausting and you felt like roadkill dragged through a swamp and back, and your brain hurt, like it had been chomped on by alligators and then burned in acid. It was two weeks to your finals–teachers were chewing you out on homework, and annoyingly, you still couldn’t get half the syllabus memorized right.
Hey, you weren’t below average. To be fair, the entire cohort was struggling on the last strands of sanity that they have. Any reasonable person would have grumbled after classes and made their way home, loaded up Genshin Impact, and beat the crap out of Tartaglia.
Music enthusiast, theater kid, and built slightly different, you did not make your way home.
No, you found yourself limping on both legs as you trudged out of the classroom and made a beeline for the music room, backpack slung over your shoulder and face dead to the world.
Senior year in high school wasn’t necessarily bad–you would say that the company was quite enjoyable. Despite most high schools complaining about issues like the petty drama, or the guys blowing up the school every two weeks, those that have had problems with your school had generally cleared out by the end of sophomore year. The remaining cohort turned out to be decent folks with, thankfully, no penchant for bloodlust, and you all got along pretty well.
You passed by your best friend, who gave you a two-fingered salute and poked his head back into the locker, rummaging for god knows what. As he did, the metal locker door had swung in slightly, so he probably had a mild concussion as he tried putting his head back into his locker too fast.
You can’t really blame him. With the amount of workload the school piles on you each day, it is a miracle you can even wade your way through neck-level papers to find your way out of the classroom.
Shuffling past boisterously chattering juniors, you ducked right, and into a relatively quieter corridor. Your backpack was a weight on your shoulders, and your desperate need for music was growing more and more pressing.
The door to the music room was slightly ajar, but the room was quiet and dark.
Tutting, you mumbled about irresponsible people and their inability to tidy after themselves, pushing open the door and stepping inside.
The grand piano stood as the centerpiece of the music room, the other music stands and guitar stands seemingly making way for the beautifully dark masterpiece of ingenuity. It glinted in the dim light—the instrument reflecting a radiance from its surroundings a thousand times more brilliantly. You shuffled along, your shoes making friction with the carpet and making a quiet brushing sound.
You made your way to the piano seat and swung your bag down to the floor, lifting the lid quietly, not wanting to disturb the rare zen of the quiet, dark room. The leathery cushion squeaked a little as you sat down, resting your fingers on the ivory keys and pressing down on the pedal, and the flood of the past few days of school pressure manifested into a strong downward push of your fingers.
You didn’t even need to know what you were playing–you couldn’t see the keys, and your fingers had molded themselves into chords that were familiar to you anyway. The sound flooded the music room as it resonated throughout the room.
A dark mop of hair popped up behind the piano, and you shrieked.
Your entire body was frozen, the pedal had been released with a loud clack, and then there was no sound.
“Sorry–sorry!” The shadow squawked, and as your eyes adjusted, you saw a dark-haired somebody shimmy their way to the music room door.
“Oh my god,” you said, shooting out your hand. “Wait, no, don’t turn on the lights–”
A blinding light suddenly hit you, and you squinted, realizing the person had reached for the switches and turned on the lights.
The rays of light hit your skin like pins and needles, picking on every molecule on your skin and slowly disintegrating it into ashes. The onslaught had you hissing and sputtering like a vampire that had been pushed out of its shade into the glaring sun. You blinked to orient yourself.
The dark-haired person turned around.
He was a guy, maybe in your year, wearing a cream-colored hoodie and jeans. A set of white wired earphones were plugged into the phone he was holding, one of the buds still stuffed in his ears and the other dangling off his phone. He looked extremely awkward, like he was poised to turn and run at any moment.
You met his eyes, and then your blood froze in your veins.
He was beautiful. His hair, brownish but reflecting the clinical white LED lights that gave it a gentle orange saturation, framed his dark chocolate eyes. They were warm and deep, and they were set in dark brows that shaped his face. His face was sharp and smooth, but the rosy cheeks and the slight, unsure smile made him look boyishly charming. You wonder how you ever missed a student like him around the school, or ever forgot a face like his.
Okay, shit, now what do you say?!
You’re really handsome makes you sound like a creep. You don’t want to appear as a creep. Fuck.
“Hi, uhm. It’s you. What are you doing in the dark?” His voice stopped your internal panic, in order to give way to more internal panic.
Your racing brain was working overtime, your cheeks were hot. You weren’t sure if it was from the embarrassment of being caught red-handed playing the piano in the dark, or was it just him being really attractive. Both thoughts that were not working in your favour, judging from the declining nonchalance any response you could offer may ever indicate.
Scrambling for a thought, you lunged for your last brain cell colliding around the walls of the barren halls of your brain. It finally yielded a thought, one that made you feel like a genius: you decide to play the UNO reverse card on him. “What are you doing here in the dark?”
The guy cocked his brow, before saying very slowly, “Learning a song. You?”
“Musical therapy.” You offered.
“So we both decided that escaping civilization and getting high on music is the best way to evade finals?” He asked, his lips curving into a slight smile.
Huh. So he was a fellow senior year student. You silently cursed yourself for not looking around more—you could’ve caught him around somewhere and marveled at him from afar, not get caught in this panic-induced brain overheat by suddenly encountering a random attractive student. You could’ve had some time to rehearse some pick-up lines and woo him into your arms or something.
But… how did he know you were a senior year student too? Eh. It might’ve been the eyebags. Those were trademark features of a starved, tortured student.
“Well, between facing reality and music, I know what I’m choosing.” You shrugged, still bracing a hand against the piano.
“Oh my god,” his brown eyes sparkled, and you couldn’t help but notice how the shitty LED lights of the music room seemed to reflect galaxies and stars in his eyes. “Somebody gets it.”
“Eh, comes with being a kid born to theater, forced to calculus. Soooo, what song are you learning?” You pried, sliding your hands off the keys and walking towards him. He seemed to be frozen on the spot, not knowing what to do. Adorably lost.
He shifted uncomfortably on his feet, but still flashed his screen at me, and I see the cover album art of a badly drawn saxophone using acrylic paint with vaguely clashing colors. You bemoan the art scene these days–anything could be an album art if it were blurry and fuzzy enough to form an impression of something yet confuse ninety-nine percent of the population.
“Jazz?” In response to vague art, you have to make wild guesses.
“Yep,” he chirped happily. “Couldn’t have guessed from the huge saxophone.”
“Not in a million years.” You said, smiling widely. “I’m goated.”
“You just did, and I would say you are goated,” he laughed, and stuck out his hand. “Will Stetson.”
“Nice to meet you,” you said and took his hand, awkwardly watching your joined hands bob up and down flimsily a few times before retracting it to your sides. You gave him your name, and watched him test it. He nailed the pronunciation the first time, which you give an approving nod of.
“So, what artist are you into right now?” You ask.
“Well, that question never gets easy, does it?” He sucks in a breath and thinks for a little. “I’m currently just listening to some old jazz record albums just to get into the swing of it, pun intended.”
He looked a little smug about it too, that bastard.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” you said, shaking your head, and he laughed.
There was an awkward pause in the air as you two stared at each other, Will switching off his phone and tucking it into his jeans pocket while clearing his throat and you fidgeting with your fingers and subconsciously drumming a melody that is disturbingly reminiscent of Flight of the Bumblebee on your thigh.
“If you’d like, we can just hang around,” you offered after a beat. “I can play softer.”
“I wouldn’t mind at all,” Will muttered, walking to a spot behind the piano and curled up on one of the tiny stools. You settle on the piano once more, and rest your fingers on the piano, taking care to play your notes softly. He looked up at you, music once more blasting through his earphones, and gave you a fleeting, soft smile before humming to a tune only he knows.
Looks like the two of you will be music hermit camp buddies for quite a while yet.
***
Will Stetson, you quickly realized, was an absolute nerd.
He may seem to be graceful and cultured and classically trained in the fine arts, and his perfect pitch makes him seem supernatural in harmonization and intonation, but when Japanese pop or anime was introduced within earshot, the ensuing lecture-slash-yapping the dude launches himself into was spectacular to watch.
You found yourself sauntering into the music room on the best of days, sheet music in hand and a smile on your face, Will’s name hanging on your tongue and a new piece to try out with him in hand. On the worst of days, you would stumble unsteadily into the room to find him there, come hell or high water, with eyebags under his eyes, a weak smile, and solemn company.
For two weeks, both of you had alternated between two spots: the dark leather seat on the piano, and the armchair. One of you would play, the tunes picked by your current mood and the taste you each fancy, and the other would be sprawled across the armchair, notes and books in hand, an earbud tucked into one ear, humming softly to yourselves. There will be an occasional flip of the sheet music or a book, a casual sentence here and there, and you would sink back into your comfortable, shared space of music.
You favoured Chopin, and maybe you were an emo at heart, because you were content with pouring your darkness into the glittering black piano before you. Chopin seemed to give your heart a voice that sings and bleeds, and makes your thoughts take flight in form and grace and shadow.
Will listens.
He favours jazz, and although he declares he has no favourite artist and you should fuck off with those questions, you have caught him, on more than one occasion, shredding the piano with one specific set of chords followed by a crazy riff he was absolutely obsessed with. You weren’t sure who the artist was, though.
You listen.
Whenever he settled into the leather seat, and he played the same song for the fiftieth time, you’d unplug your earbud in one ear–the one that was out of his line of sight–and tune down whatever you were listening to, reaching a volume that was near imperceptible. The piano music that reaches your ears was better than whatever gossip flavour of the week the talk show hosts crammed down your throat, anyway.
You would occasionally bump into each other at school now, since you knew what to look out for–high cheekbones, fluffy brown hair, sweatpants, the particular cadence in his voice that you know is up to no good as he suddenly bursts into a sentence that is so puzzlingly random and out of place of the current context of his conversation.
It brings comfort to you, to know that there was a person in this school that you had a unique connection to in the darkest and hardest of times.
Your eyes would meet, and you would give him a little wave. He’d smile back at you, bounce a little on his heels and wave back, and that was that. You did notice his friends staring, though.
Exams drew near, emotions were high, and the laboratory practicals had started. Chemistry lab was surprisingly easy, and if you don’t count the sulfuric acid that had accidentally stained the top right corner of your exam paper, you were pretty confident this was an easy pass. Your best friend had been less fortunate–his test tube had burst right in his face.
He grumbled as he told you that, in which you laughed in his face for a solid ten minutes, and then went to buy some strawberry ice cream with him.
That had been the only solace in the entire season. Everything else had been rocky, and you were hanging onto every piece of knowledge you had scraped off classes to get by.
Your face was buried in your notes, the anxiety of tomorrow’s test slowly sinking in. Although Social Studies may be a breeze to those of them that have a natural affinity to linguistics, you were unfortunately not built as such, and therefore relaxing this afternoon was out of the question. Instead, you have resigned yourself to cramming every bit of information you can find to even salvage any semblance of a decent grade for that subject.
You thought you kept your anxiety under check, but as the clock ticked by and the panic bled and overwhelmed your vision, you realized you couldn’t breathe well.
Before you knew where you were going, your feet had taken you to the music room, and yet again, to that slightly ajar door in which a tinny light from the room shuttered. The concrete floor transitioned into carpet, and you stumbled into the nearest armchair, fatigued and solemn, and closed your eyes.
Ivory keys gently struck the metal strings of the piano, and the strains of a soft melody–distinctly Chopin but with the naïve, shallow touch of a new learner–seemed to soothe you, embrace you, and you sank, you sank into that comforting night.
The last thing you remember is a concerned voice approaching in your direction.
***
You awoke to someone poking you on the cheek with a finger. You groaned loudly, and pushed off the person before turning on your other side and going right back to sleep.
Another shake, and this time, two hands were wrapped around your arm, and you were violently rocked from side to side. That annoyed you a little.
Enough to wake you to grumble a coherent “If I’m not awake, Social Studies does not exist,” before fading back to sleep.
A faint chuckle. Deep voice–male.
“C’mon, you’ll have to wake up. School’s closing, and even the janitors are packing up.”
Will. That was Will’s voice, and your eyes snapped open, wide.
“I fell asleep?” You yawned, sitting up and rubbing your eyes. “Crap, I needed to study.”
“In this state?” Will frowned. “No offense, but your eyebags have eyebags. You’ve clearly seen better days, and you are in absolutely no fit state to study. You need to rest.”
Your normal quip was at the tip of your tongue. “Excuse you, my eyebags are designer.”
“Even designer bags would be weighed down if you put too much pressure on it, no?” He replied without missing a beat, and you marveled at his aloofness to the impending doom that was to befall the cohort in a few hours.
Oh god. The exam. You felt the searing panic that had settled into your bones flaring up again, the flames of anxiety licking your mind and making the edge of your vision turn panic-red.
“You have Social Studies tomorrow too, right? How are you so…” You couldn’t find the right word, but gesturing wildly at him and the room and then the piano seemed to give him a pretty good idea.
“A tip, from one fellow sufferer to another, Social Studies isn’t about memorizing. At least, it isn’t for me. My strategy is to achieve maximum relaxation for my brain the day before. Keep a fresh and clear mind as you enter the exam at the break of dawn to analyse the material. In fact, I thought you were doing exactly that, so I didn’t wake you.”
“What do you have to prove your credibility, Mr. I-Sleep-Away-My-Exams?” You snarked.
“I got straight As last semester.”
You swore.
“It really wasn’t that hard. You really should try it–the relaxing. It may help more than you think.” He offered gently.
You rubbed your eyes again, and shook your head. “I don’t think I can find it in me to relax at all, not with my grades on the line. This isn’t going to be easy.”
“Listen, worrying about it won’t help either. A wise man taught me: life isn’t as serious as you make it out to be. So take a deep breath,” Will said, and you gazed into his eyes, earnest and wide, and you did. “Good. Now calm down, relax. Okay. Let that breath out.”
Wind rushed out of your lungs, and you felt the edges of the red-hot panic that had gripped you for the better half of the day slowly fade out, replaced by the firm grip of Will’s hands on your shoulder. You felt the warmth of his hands, the sharp brown gaze, the soft carpet under your feet, the faint buzzing of the lights.
Your fingers, which you haven’t even realized were fisted into the paper, relaxed.
“The death grip on your notes while you slept was concerning. Are your arms okay?”
You flexed your fingers. “‘Tis but a little cramp. But thanks. Really.”
He nods, knowing that you weren’t actually talking about the cramp.
As you stood up and turned to leave the room, his eyes lit in the ominous way in which you knew something was up. He trailed behind you, switching off the lights and closing the door behind him.
Then–
“Want me to kiss it better?” He purred.
You whirled around and gaped at his shit-eating smirk, unable to comprehend that Will– sweet, gentle Will! –had these words come out of his mouth, but quickly composed yourself and smiled threateningly, teeth and all.
“You can try, Stetson.”
***
The exam had your brain twisted into pretzels, but heeding Will’s advice had, as it turned out to be, the wise thing to do. You waltzed out of the hall, body feeling lighter than it had for the past few months. The most challenging subjects were out of the way, clearing your focus for your strong suit: your sciences.
The hall was filled with a cacophony of voices, some grousing about the questions and their inability to finish the questions before the time was up, some chattering to their friends as they shared the ingenuity to their answers and watched them despair and bury their faces in their hands.
You looked around for your best friend, and found him walking towards you, girlfriend in his arms and a bright smile on his face.
“So, that went well.” He said as a manner of greeting, and his girlfriend waved at you.
You waved back and laughed. “And here I thought at least one of us held onto the brain cell.”
“What did you write for question four?” Your best friend asked.
You groaned. “Dude, if I recite all that crap that I had written, one, you’d be here for days, and two, Mr. Smith is gonna burn me alive.”
His girlfriend muttered, fair enough. I smirked at her and she gave me a fist bump.
“We’re getting chilli dogs to ruminate our existences over, you coming with?” He asked.
“You know, like the greasy, unhealthy ones you find on the side of the road.” His girlfriend added. “Your favourite.”
“I would love to, but I have no interest in third-wheeling, so enjoy yourselves. Maybe some other time.” You said, and looked at the crowd, querying eyes searching for–
“Stetson is headed straight to the music room,” she said. “He did that right as we left the hall.”
“How did you–” You started, but she raised her brows and folded her arms, even as her boyfriend looked curiously at her.
“Watching you two prance around each other on campus is cute. It really is. But it hurts for the rest of us to watch,” she said. “Especially when both of you are dense idiots that seem to think the other is romantically interested in the piano.”
“But he is! He’s practically married to it!” You exclaim, throwing up your hands in frustration.
She casts a long-suffering glance at her boyfriend, giving him a look that says, are you seeing this, and he nods in silent agreement.
“See you guys around later.” You call as you walk away. “Enjoy the chilli dogs for me.”
They waved cherrily at me and walked off, chatting to each other. His girlfriend made a comment, and my best friend tipped his head back and laughed.
You smiled to yourself and made your way to the music room.
True enough, Will was sitting at the dark leather seat in front of the dark-gleaming instrument, the lid propped up high and sparkling under the LED. His fingers danced as the music washed and flowed through the room, through the piano, through you. His body swayed with the currents of the piece, and you were brought along with it.
Liszt , you recognized.
His eyes were closed, his expression serene, his fingers seemingly floating above the keyboard as he lost himself in the swirling eddies of Au Bord d’une Source , and felt the patter of rain on your face, the beat of mountain dew on leaves, the rushing of a river distantly around you.
An angel of music.
He felt so distant, on a throne of obsidian, his magic washing through you, beckoning, controlling, pulling you in…
He tapered to an even, serene stop, as if you were in the middle of the sea, calm and at peace, as the waves of water converged and swirled and at last, settled.
You thought you were in this oasis, this otherworldly, fantastical haven that he had created, and shook yourself out of it as he stopped.
“That,” you breathed, and he turned around, eyes sparkling as he landed his gaze on your wide eyes. “Have you ever considered playing professionally?”
“I have.” The words had such finality that I wondered how long ago was it that he had made this decision. He really was married to the piano.
“That was so much…” You said, and the music was so profound, so alive that you couldn’t find the words for it. “Beauty.”
“I practice a lot.” He said. “How was the paper?”
“Better than I expected, surprisingly.” You said. “Thanks to you.”
He gave you two thumbs up, and you jerked your chin at him, silently asking about him.
“Oh,” he shrugged, as if the finals were something to be shrugged off, “it was okay.”
Apparently, the guy was smart enough to ace his exams with sufficient rest, self-care, and a ton of music.
Ah, the life of gifted individuals we mere mortals could never understand, you thought to yourself.
“C’mere.” He said, and to your surprise and utter horror, shifted to the left on the leather seat and patted to his right.
“You want me to sit next to you?” You gasped in mock exclaim. “You? Gentleman, refined, pianist, Will Stetson extraordinaire? The scandal!”
“Or not.” He moved to shift back, smiling amusedly at you as you scramble for the seat.
This close, this close, you were suddenly regretting the decision to sit next to him. His scent–a faint lavender, probably from the detergent he uses–surprisingly comforting, and the sheer body warmth that he exudes was doing unhealthy things to your heart.
“Press the pedal for me?” He asked under his breath, gently; softly. The low cadence was accompanied with the tentative gaze under long brown lashes.
Did he turn up the heater or something? Why was the room suddenly so warm?
His hands were braced, and with the first three bars of the music, you instantly recognized it as the Chopin piece that you tend to play. It wasn’t your favourite, just one that you were good at playing, so it stuck. And you repeated.
Perhaps he picked it up, knowing that you were partial to this song. Perhaps he learned it, and although he knew he might not be the best at it, he played it for you anyway. Your heart bloomed at that thought.
Now, the thing with pressing the pedal on the piano was this. There is one fleeting gap, a fraction of a second, in which the notes on the piano keys were fully pressed down so that the pedal had time to quickly flit up and be pressed down again. The coordination of the playing fingers and the leg had to be flawless, and therefore usually done by the same person.
Will was a different breed and made you sit next to him to give you the impossible task of pressing the pedal.
Needless to say, the piece sounded less expressively intricate and more like a drowning cat desperately gulping for breaths as it mewled its lament.
You were the first to snicker, not at the disjointed pedal-pressing but more at the struggling fingers that were finding the right notes to Chopin’s piece. You silently murmured an apology to the composer.
His stoicness soon also dissolved into laughter as the notes gave a particularly loud yowl that sounded between an alley cat and an alien that had just stepped off a UFO.
He tried coordinating the pedal, and you gave your effort, but it just couldn’t work, and the melody that had once been gloomy and existential now gave the whiny laments of a five-year-old.
“How about you give me a cue for when you need to press the pedal,” you suggested.
“I’ll nod and you press.” He said, and both of you agreed.
That strategy worked for the first two bars. Unfortunately, his nods slowly turned more aggressive as you missed the timing in the subsequent few bars, and he lost it and started headbanging in your direction.
That resulted in you getting a faceful of curly brown hair.
“WILLIAM!” You bellowed.
“How about I nudge you when you need to press the pedal,” he said quickly.
You grunted, still trying to snort out his hair.
It worked, more or less. Every bar or so, he’d push you, and your leg would press down. However, consistency was a fickle creature and there were some bars where the timing was off. He’d get anxious or you’d lose focus, and it was a matter of time before he panicked and moved from nudging you to elbowing you in the gut.
“Press your own damn pedal, Stetson.” You ground out in pain, hand clutching your side and curled up, your face inches from the keys.
Will looked horrified.
“Shit, I elbowed you too hard! I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”
“Getting mauled by you was not how I imagined to spend time post-humanities.” You gritted out.
You felt his hands come around you, and his face on your shoulder. He was hugging you.
“I normally don’t do this, but,” Will paused. Then, in his tiniest, most sheepish voice: “Sorry.”
The cotton fabric of his pastel green hoodie felt cozy rubbing against your shirt, and you patted his head, relishing in the feeling of sinking your fingers into that soft texture.
“Just press your own pedal next time, Stetson.” You said.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, further tightening the hug.
“I know,” you said, trying to shove him off, but the guy was a koala. “I’ve already forgiven you. You can let go now.”
“You only call me Stetson when you’re mad. So, I’m going to hug the shit out of you until we’re back on a first-name basis.”
You were surprised at the laugh that rang out of your mouth. “Aww, okay.” You snaked a hand around his shoulder, holding him as well.
After a moment, when you’ve had your fill of your crush’s tight embrace, you said, “Will. I was wondering.”
“Hm?” He looked at you, his face far too close, his irises a shade of vibrant brown and each individual iris fold lined with gold–
You leaned away quickly and said, “Can you sing?”
“I don’t know. I suck, maybe? I’ve only ever sung in the shower or to my dog.”
“Would you like to try? I have a score here from a musical–you can try that.”
The music was one that had been passed around amongst your drama friends, as they had been quite fired up for their new in-school production of Broadway’s Cinderella. As a senior, you had the right social circle to be in the right place, in the right time to snag a score.
“Absolutely,” Will said, taking the sheets of paper in his hands, and you took your seat at the piano, having memorized the general chords for the song already. He cleared his throat and locked eyes with you.
Ten minutes ago I saw you
I looked up as you came through the door
My head started reeling
You gave me the feeling the room had no ceiling or floor
His voice was… it wasn’t bad, not really. He had a smooth tone to it, and his intonation was obviously quite flawless, but the placement of his vocals were too far behind his throat to not sound a little funny.
You may have giggled a little, which you quickly masked for a cough, and Will frowned. “What?”
“Nothing. I’ve just never heard your singing voice before.” You said, smiling widely. “It’s nice! Go on, continue.”
Will’s nervous face softened a little, and he took another deep breath, thumbing the score nervously. You played an introduction of two bars for him to continue:
Ten minutes ago I met you
And we murmured our how do you dos
I wanted to ring out the bells
And fling out my arms
And to sing out the news
His voice was solid, and smooth, and had a masculine tone to it–one that made the notes your piano play quiver in excitement in response to the resonance he creates.
I have found her she's an angel
With the dust of the stars in her eyes
We are dancing
We are flying
And she's taking me back to the skies
The song was beautiful, yet the sparkle in his eyes was even more brilliant. And there it was again, that serene smile that sent you melting.
“You should sing more. You have a nice voice.” You said.
“Yeah, really?” His face was tentative, nervous.
“I mean I can tell you’re singing, which is very good already. You should hear my brother sing.”
“I have a feeling that the current convention of a so-called ‘good voice’ constitutes merely hitting the right notes,” Will says, his voice laced with doubt and uncertainty. “I have perfect pitch, but not necessarily, like, you know, have good technique.”
“That can be trained,” you reassured. “You have all the natural talent you need, you just need to put effort into it.”
“Are you really sure about that?”
“Yep. A hundred percent. I believe in you.”
The smile he shot you was so warm, so kind, that you wondered if that had been it–just a smile.
“As much as both of you are having fun in there, darlings, the cheerleaders need to use the room for extracurricular activities today, so pack it up.” Mrs. Padilla, with her accentuated red shirt and loud clicky heels on the concrete floor outside called loudly, and both of your faces burned red.
“Yes, Mrs. Padilla,” Will muttered, and both of you quickly rushed out of the music room.
***
In the following weeks, though both of you were kept away and busy with the last few papers of the year, he somehow still found a way to keep you feeling less lonely.
One afternoon, in a shadowed spot along the corridors, he had cornered you as you were walking out of the hall, and asked for your number.
You had blushed fiercely then, and saw a bright red shade on his face as well as you both exchanged numbers.
You were pretty confident after finding out that he was a nerd on all things anime that you were ready for whatever he may throw you in the world of texting. You were fully prepared for rap battles, sparkling emojis, non-existent punctuation and an excess of intrusive thoughts at midnight.
For some reason, you had not anticipated the soft, concerned check-ins that always, for some mystical reason, came at the right time.
You would be so burnt out with your studying that you’d take a deep breath and lean back, and Will Stetson, Captain Punctual-In-The-Most-Uncanny-Way would send you a text asking how you’d been. At 1am.
Will: Sup, howre you holding up?
You: biology sucks
Will: yeahhh i get that. still can’t get the spelling of eukaryote right
Will: at least on the phone it autocorrects for me
Will: my point is, take a break if you need to. Pulling an all-nighter never helped anyone
You: Sleep is for the WEAK
Will: NO YOU SHOULD SLEEP
You: NEVAH
You: Why are you even awake at this hour
You: Will?
Will: GO TO SLEEP
You: okay okay jeez
You:
You: night
Life really has a way of making your heart function overtime–it was either the caffeine or your music-shaped friend.
You have a pretty strong idea which one it may have been.
Of course, with the texting came the cat videos and the overwhelming amount of Hatsune Miku vocaloids. You were glad the Will you knew didn’t change, even if the weirdness was in the confines of a text box linked to both of your phones through a wireless connection, even if you cannot actually feel him right next to you, his strong gaze and his warm body absent beside you.
The last day of the finals had been a dream. You had waited outside the door of the hall, and as students poured out, Will had clapped your back and shared a wide grin with you, and wordlessly, as both of you knew where you were heading to, walked to the music room together.
You caught a glimpse of your best friend and his girlfriend giving you big thumbs-ups, and your scowl had been playful.
That day, as the students’ excited chatter puttered to a quiet stop, as the sun dove down the curtains and the school members came and knocked and asked you both to pack up, the two of you had sung.
Piece after piece, you took turns on the piano and the music stand, and although no more exams had stopped you from pausing to study or to leave for homework, so had they given you no more reason to meet up anymore.
Deep down, you knew this had to end one day. The Coda to your music was approaching its last few notes–its double bar line not far from the horizon.
He knew too, from the sad look he gave to the piano, to the room as he poured his soul into his playing, his singing. For only a few more hours, you could pretend that it will last forever, that time was not slipping away, and hold onto this moment for just a little longer.
In this fleeting, precious moment, you tipped your head back, not a care in the world, as the music flowed through you, as you made music like you’ve never had before.
So the two of you sang, and sang, and sang.
***
Graduation Day arrived.
Dressed in your dark robes and holding your hat that you had tossed up high, your face was buried in Will’s chest, his in your shoulder, as you embraced each other tightly.
No words were exchanged.
He was leaving for a road trip around the country, and his dream was a beautiful sprawling city of music and dance and art, the skyline bustling with splashes of colour and light–Los Angeles.
Where his destination took him you cannot follow, as your way took you to Massachusetts–to the land of scholars and science and numbers.
“Meet me there,” Will whispered. “Los Angeles. Promise me you’ll find me there, in the city of angels. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Maybe I will,” You murmured into his chest. You heard a belly chuckle from deep within his body that reverberated with yours. “So poetic.”
“Good.”
“I guess this is goodbye, then.” You said, trying not to cry.
“I guess so,” Will said. “But not really.”
“Not really,” you agreed, and perhaps saying it out loud was more to convince yourself than him.
The words hung between you, and you both stood in the silence, too afraid to say it out loud, yet his brown eyes met yours, and it had been so vulnerable, so raw.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
None of you spoke a word. You left the school in silence.
***
Living in different states made it hard to keep in touch with one Will Stetson. He still sends you random videos from time to time, but it slowly becomes less and less. He was busy with his courses–his Bachelor of Music in UConn was enough to keep him offline for a long time–and you were busy frying your brain with quantum mechanics, so your hectic schedules made time only for the mandatory annual birthday wishes.
For the first year, both of you had managed enough time off coursework to call each other twice, but that was that.
He informed you that he dropped out, to your surprise, and you told him about your life in your university, and then he went off the radar for a long time again.
You didn’t realize you missed your banter until you had called again a year later and the conversation had clashed back into the lightning-sparking wit that the both of you created in sync.
However, there was something missing–something that cannot be fulfilled with both of you remotely talking to each other. The familiarity and warmth that was transmitted in the form of being right next to you physically was gone. With that, a touch of coldness and strangeness of your conversation with each other.
That night, as you pressed the end call button, you did not have the desire to call him again, for fear of sensing that creeping coldness that had chilled you to your bones. You would rather not call him than to experience that again.
Because that dreaded feeling felt awful. For the first time in a long while, he felt… like a stranger.
You hated that feeling.
Starting your master’s degree took you away from that for two whole years, and you thought about him from time to time, then none at all. Some days, you didn’t even remember this person, or this name, and when you did recall, all you could feel was guilt eating you up inside.
You tried dialling his phone a few times after that, and to your demise, it had reached voicemail each time.
Finally, it went through, and a random woman from Florida answered. The number had been recycled after being unused for too long.
Will Stetson had changed his damned phone number.
Things were getting hectic and pressure was hiking up unhealthily high, and although you had made one hell of a thesis project, your burnout had been bad. In the midst of that, no one had been there to soothe you.
Clicking the submit button with all that was left in you, you felt like an entire 7-ton truck had been lifted off your chest. You had finished your final assignment, and all that was left was to wait for your professor’s grading and graduate.
You trudged out of your apartment, with one goal in mind: to get uproariously drunk.
Pushing open the pub doors, the speakers flood your senses, and you squinted, making an effort trying to place where that voice came from.
And then it clicked.
It’s Will’s voice. Will Stetson, who had worked hard and had made it to Los Angeles. His music now poured from the speakers of your local pub, and you knew he had made it.
Your fingers darted to your web browser on your phone.
It had been one daunting, heart-stopping web search that you discovered his self-named Youtube channel, and to your not-surprise, he started posting Japanese songs that he covers in his own version, yet you can sense little subtle touches he makes in each track–his jazz twist to things introducing themselves in his acapella arrangements and solo covers.
That nerd.
A hollow laugh escaped you. All this time, he had been one browser search away.
You closed your eyes to listen. The pub was lively and animated with chatter and the occasional shout of drunk people, but you turned the static out–you needed to listen to his voice.
His voice and his voice only.
It was still the Will you recognized. A voice obviously could not change that much, but in all other aspects of the vocal technique, his singing quality had absolutely changed. It was much clearer, and the control of his voice from one note to the next had you moony-eyed.
As his voice dipped to a particularly low note and emerged just as gracefully, gliding over the smooth panes of the instrumental like a swan, you felt your breath being stolen away once again.
Once again, you found yourself in that music room, as the music washed over you.
Once again, you expected him to just turn around any second, and give you that wide smile and hook his arms over your shoulder, his thick, pastel-coloured cotton hoodie making you feel all warm and fuzzy and homely.
Once again, you found yourself in his arms, the day both of you graduated from your alma mater.
“Meet me there,” Will had murmured in your ear then. “Los Angeles. Promise me you’ll find me there, in the city of angels. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Your breath shuttered, and your fingers flew on the keyboard of your phone. Before you knew it, you had sent him a private message.
Not as a friend, but as a fan on his Twitter account, where it would be devoured alive by the onslaught of thousands of other enthusiastic listeners that had slipped into his DMs as well. You did not, and yet simultaneously badly needed him to read this message.
After all, the famous singer that had sung his way into fame in the hall of angels was no longer the friend you once knew in high school, no longer the guy you… fell in love with.
Love. What a strange word.
You never thought you would use this word, nor associate with anyone, but here you are, chest all fuzzy and warm like the hoodies he wears, a desperate plea lost in the wind for him to remember you again after more than half a decade apart.
It would be a fucking miracle if he even knew you existed, yet you could recall each word you had with him with stunning clarity after all those years.
How pathetic, you spat at yourself. For hoping anything had existed between you and him.
You looked at the square text box, at Will’s name, and hit the send button, then nearly threw down the phone on the pub counter, face-down. On it read:
If Will Stetson sees this,
Hey. Remember me? You probably don’t, but that’s okay. You don’t have to.
I recently heard one of your songs over the radio on the local bar–it’s fire! Your career really did pop off like you said it would, huh. Made it to the mainstream in LA and all that. I’m so proud of you. Just know that somewhere, in a small corner of this world, I’ll be hanging onto every note you sing. Keep doing what you love, and I’ll be here to support you.
Finishing up my masters in Massachusetts. Maybe I’ll really come and find you. I miss you.
You did not expect a reply, nor did you get one.
You ordered the strongest drink there was, and did not even remember how you wound up back in your apartment that night.
***
News about the upcoming Olympics that will be held in Los Angeles had been only one of the many reasons why you were heading there. You had gotten a job in New York, and after exhausting yourself in science research in a company that pays so much less that what you were doing, you were ready for a change.
You weren’t by any means underpaid, just not what you deserved.
Cooped up in your cramped apartment that cost a fortune every square feet, you flipped tab after tab on your computer, doing your homework and booking all the tickets and comparing prices.
You had a grand plan. You were going to write in a resignation letter, up and leave and haul ass to Los Angeles. There is a company there with a wonderful job offer that clearly cares for their employers more and offers a higher pay, with added perks and benefits, and the newly announced Olympic Games that you were absolutely obsessed with since young was the deal breaker.
And perhaps, just perhaps, finally meet the man you had been searching for. You had promised him you’d meet him there. You’d promised him.
Would he be waiting for you there, or has the river of time washed away any ties between you?
You checked his Twitter. He was posting random things, things that were everything and nothing in between–no unified thoughts, just Will. You scrolled down a little, and a shot of a background and just his eyes shown on the screen, and they were the same shade of warm brown you had remembered.
Your heart leaped a little and you hated yourself for it.
Scrolling more, you found more little bits and pieces of him strewn around the account, his personality cheekily waving in and out of the tiny strips of text he posts, yet it doesn’t quite grasp who he was anymore. Your thoughts of him were drifting, straying further and further away from you and you couldn’t get it back.
Clicking into the dms, you looked through the names until you found Will’s name, his latest song plastered next to his name and a tiny verified checkmark embellishing it.
And found your message switched to read, three weeks ago.
***
You waved at the Uber driver, politely thanking them for dropping you off, and then turning to look at your apartment. Your luggage clattered noisily behind you, and though your life possessions were enough to be fitted into a luggage with ease, your nervousness was too overwhelming to fit into any possible capacity.
The city of angels. You were here, in this colourful land of music and art and beauty.
You were geographically in the same space as Will again, yet you were so far from when you started. In a dazzling land it was harder to find a sparkling diamond when everyone shone just as bright. How were you going to reach him?
His Twitter was a dead end. Chances were, he didn’t even read them, or had assigned an agent to handle these things. Unless…your heart refused to believe the third option–that he maybe have forgotten about you.
Work consumed you not long after. This company had treated you better than the last one–they had even bought you your car and recognized your talent for what it is. You spent a few months wading through your job until you found a comfortable tempo, before you settled down and thought about Will again.
It was nearing Christmas, and you still had no idea what to do, or where to even start.
You hunted through his Youtube videos, hoping to find a clue, but finding none, you were ready to give up and resign yourself to spamming Will until he responds.
Your eyes landed on the work email.
No, no. He was a working man, this email was there for commissions and work-related issues that had nothing to do with his personal acquaintances, which you unfortunately were.
Dead end, again.
You wracked your brains for any other way to reach him. By slow or fast methods, you had to get to him, eventually. The world was small, you could use it to your advantage.
It clicked.
You were shit at writing, but you didn’t need any extra skill to express what you needed to. Your fingers flew, and your eyes stared unblinkingly at the screen as page after page of story emerged before your eyes, your emotions and memories pouring out as your heart bled and bled and bled.
As night turned into day and rain whipped up in torrents of vertical bullets, as lightning clashed outside and people ran, screaming, holding a raincoat to their heads and ducking into shelters, as life carried on outside, you were stuck in the past, writing about a life, a world where the long-gone memories have not passed.
The Will in your story was vibrant, his tone and actions caring, his demeanor which spoke in a teasing and funny voice, just as you remembered him to be. You recounted those days that you had spent together, and carved the Will you had known into your story, as you lovingly sculpted his character like a potter to clay, and embellished its sides with the feelings that had been deeply, and longingly buried underneath years and years of loving him from afar.
Love.
What a strange word, as you see it appearing yet again.
As you think of Will, that strange feeling floats into the front of your mind. What a curious, yet wonderful, and perhaps a little painful feeling.
Your heart shakes, and trembles beneath the weight of the unknown. It shivers, and it cracks.
The breaking of your heart, the departure of someone you hold dear merely because of the passage of time. And you would do anything, anything, to never feel that way again.
For holding onto that promise to yourself, and to him, you scrutinise every single word, double-check and triple-check every phrase, capture and carve every feeling you have into the words you yield, every inch of vulnerability you show covered by more and more layers of flowery language and descriptive frivolous nothings.
Desperately hoping that someday, someone will read those words and unravel the person hidden beneath them. Perhaps by offering a piece of your heart, you might find the rest of it amidst this city, where angels sing for the triumphant and weep for the damned — a city where one had stolen yours and kept it safe from harm.
You waited for the weekend, and as you threw back a shot, pressed the publish button.
You were even more alone now with your own thoughts, in your own tiny apartment unit, snow falling outside and feeling more lonely than ever.
“If Will Stetson sees this,” you said to no one in particular. You held your glass high, as the liquid swirled in the light and refracted a million tiny pieces, like the state your heart lay, in tatters and in the cradle of a cold, dark night.
Whatever following words you had babbled out loud into the void had been nonsense. To your tear-filled eyes, the story before you were mere alphabets punched out with dark font under the dim light. They were just words–hollow placeholders for a sentiment that was too strong and profound to ever truly be stored within and delivered to him in an unknown place of pixels and bytes.
Lips met glass, and as you downed another mouthful, salty tears clashed with the bitter taste of alcohol.
The snow outside billowed and crashed against your window, and even though your thick knitted sweater and hot chocolate gave you all the physical warmth you needed on a cold rainy night, your heart felt every inch of the chill brought on by the storm outside.
I love you.
I love you so much, to the point it hurts.
I can’t find you. You told me to find you. I promised to find you. Please, let me find you again.
***
Night, Christmas Eve.
You didn’t really expect anything good come out of this day. The mall was packed, the restaurants booked, and you really didn’t find the mood to look for a one-person meal dining reservation anywhere when all around you, families would gather and celebrate their night in the festive spirit.
You had bought a turkey for tomorrow’s dinner, barely squeezing it through the cashier as overexcited moms tried to take a grab at your food and make a run for it, but you were always faster. You trained for karate and you were not afraid to use it.
You hypothesize it being the bustling metropolis lifestyle you never actually managed to shake off, but who’s really keeping track.
Watching the nightlife from your window’s beautiful skyline view, a book in your hands and a steamy mug of hot chocolate beside your armchair, just like how your mom used to make it back at home. Oh, you missed her.
You brought out your Bluetooth speaker and linked it to your phone. The sound was loud enough to overshadow the bustle of the city outside, and enough to just make you forget.
The Youtube page opened, and you pressed the longest playlist Will Stetson had made on his channel–a culmination of all the works he had done throughout the years. The first song played, and you immersed yourself in it.
The second song, then the third song. You absorbed each note, each story that he sang, as his voice changed from register to register, feeling the way words rolled off his tongue.
By the eighth song, you were dancing. You were dancing to an invisible partner, your feet shuffling on the carpet floor, your hands suspended in mid-air, and you didn’t care how you looked, only that there was you, there was music, and within that, there was him .
Your phone rang.
The song paused mid-word, and your figure stopped. You furrow your brows. Surely, your company wouldn’t contact you at a time like this to work, would they? They were the only possibility going through your head right now, as the city was still relatively new to you, you did not have the luxury of time to build up your social circle, nor the mental capacity to do so. You were an asocial denizen, and a perfectly happy one.
A foreign number.
Potential scammer then. Ready to tell off whoever that was unlucky enough to have been assigned a desk job on such a lovely night, you answered the call.
“H-hey. Are you still using this number?”
Your heart stilled. The entire world stilled.
“Yeah,” you throat was hoarse, and you wondered how you even managed to croak out that one word. He sounded just as he had, just as he does in his music.
“I read your story. I can’t… Are you in LA right now?”
You hummed an affirmative, slow and nervous, and you heard a breath of relieved laughter.
“I can’t believe it! Can I come over, right now? Send me your address, I don’t care if you’re on the other side of the state, I’m driving there.”
“I-I would love it if you came over,” your voice got smaller and smaller as you spoke, and by the end of the sentence, you felt close to crying. Your fingers found the message box, and you typed in your address.
“Got it. Hey, it’s pretty close. Hang on. Fifteen minutes. I’ll be there. Hang on.”
You heard a scuffle in the background, his yelp, the rummage of drawers and muffled yelling at his roommates. After a while, as you compose yourself and even find managed a little laugh as you hear something that was unmistakably something substantial smack against his forehead, you hear the whip of snowy wind and the crunch of footsteps.
He was running to his car.
“Alright, I’ll let you drive,” you said. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
“No!” His voice surprised him, and from the way he paused and hesitated, you were certain it surprised him as well, the sudden ferocity. “No, please. Stay with me. I’ll put you on speaker.”
You heard the telltale ping of the car’s Bluetooth system and knew he was driving while on call with you, hands-free.
The conversation was tentative at first, as would any stranger that had parted for so long, but as it progressed and the minutes ticked by, you finally felt the old banter start to seep back into your conversations. He was the friend you once knew, and you felt the soul that you had fell in love with all those years ago, as the humorous comments that reminded you of the good old days when the two of you had been close. Closer than close.
The both of you talked about nothing and everything–the music, the work, the place he stays now, the city, the dreams, and it was as if no time had passed.
Your doorbell rang.
You opened the door, and as if he stepped out of a surreal dream, Will Stetson stood at your door.
He was just as beautiful as the day you’d met him, but impossibly, he became even more ethereal. He had grown from a boy into a man, and the years had added layers of depth to his presence—his brown eyes, once bright, now shone still with retained brilliance but held a quiet mystery that made his eyes all the more captivating. His stature had broadened, and the awkwardness of adolescence had vanished, replaced by a confident grace.
The boy you remembered was still there, but now, he was… almost unreachable. You couldn’t help but stare, trying to reconcile the person in front of you with the image you’d kept all these years. How could someone change so much, yet still remain the guy you always knew?
His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes held stars in their eyes as they beheld you. A hand reached to the doorframe above, and he taped a mistletoe above the two of you.
He was breathless, but as he came closer to you, and you moved in, and you felt his hot breath tickling your mouth. A soft touch, asking for permission, as his lips grazed yours, and you pressed back.
His lips enveloped yours, its taste sweet and warm and everything spiced and nice that you loved in this world. Your hands found your way onto his, tracing them up towards his waist, then his chest, then tangling in his brown hair where flecks of snow had landed. He gripped your waist, and you rested your foreheads against each other’s, breathless from the kiss.
He was the first to laugh. It started with a small release of breath, a grin, and then it turned into full-blown laughter as the two of you held each other.
You looked at him, at the warmth he held for you and the adoration in his eyes. You reached for him again, chasing the sweet, sweet taste of his lips. He responded eagerly, and the two of you lost yourselves in happiness before oxygen ran out and you had to break away to breathe.
You gave him featherlight touches to his lips, and muttered against them, “I promised you I’d come find you in the city of angels.”
“You actually remembered, after all this time?” The voice was quiet, vulnerable, Will.
The entire city faded to gray.
“Always,” you said, and you meant it. “And, uh, William?”
“Yeah?”
You hugged him, blue coloured sweater and jeans, snow-flecked brown hair and all. He hugged back just as tightly. The clock struck twelve midnight, and you felt him smile against you, nuzzling closer.
“Merry Christmas.”
END