Chapter Text
After 8 lengthy years, Schroeder had almost forgotten about the girl who used to torture him day after day when he was a little boy. Almost.
Oh, how she used to torment him with her witty comments and flirtatious remarks. Always complimenting his eyes, his hair, his music—finding with such ease the perfect areas to prod at the usually calm Schroeder to make him lose his cool in the blink of an eye. He found it especially unbearable when the girl touched him. Even a pat on the shoulder or an elbow to the ribs would make the entire area tingle for the rest of the day, rendering the boy unable to think of anything but her and her infuriating face, hair, and God, her infuriating voice—
like that of morning birds.
How he would do anything to hear it again.
Of course, this epiphany came well after she and her family had packed their bags and left town. In fact, the beginnings of these thoughts only appeared in Schroeder’s mind years later, at his first recital.
There he sat, at 11 years old, on the bench of his real piano. No longer a toy, because he was now a big kid. He was sat in front of all his friends and family, yet all Schroeder could think about was how she could no longer lean over the piano. The new one was far too big for her! Well, she could always climb on it, but that’s dangerous. Then again, she’d probably grown quite a bit since she was 8 years old as well, making it possible?
In the end, it took the boy 10 minutes of silent contemplation and a sea of anticipating eyes to start his concert. Naturally, he was a prodigy and so it still ended in raging applause and a standing ovation from all his loved ones. All but one.
Now Schroeder was 16 years old and was just a week away from starting his junior year of high school. And if you ask anyone who’s anyone, Schroeder hadn’t changed a bit since he was 8. And it was fairly true. He still loved Beethoven and piano, his best friend was still a boy named Charlie Brown, and he still missed that same little girl who moved away when they were both half the age they were now. He still thought about her before every performance, sitting at his bench. He had mourned her disappearance and made a memory out of her, serving its purpose to inspire Schroeder before every piano recital. Sitting there, Schroeder would think back on their time together—the happy moments they spent laughing in each other’s company—or sometimes, that fateful day when everything changed all at once. The day the girl left him.
The thing about Schroeder was that there’s seldom anything he disliked more than change. What a petrifying, unpredictable idea. When there is sudden change in one’s life, one has no way of gauging how much or the full effects of such change until after the fact! How awful is that?
Each night when he was little, he would wish upon every star in the sky that the girl would leave him to play his piano in peace, but how was he to know it would one day come true? That she would one day be dragged away from him, never to be seen again but to forever haunt him with the echoes of her soft laughter in his mind.
Little did Schroeder know at the time, while he was enjoying his last week of summer vacation before 11th grade, a certain black-haired girl was miles away, reminiscing about those very same nostalgic memories with her childhood friends from her hometown.
For the second time in the girl’s life, she and her family had once again packed their bags to leave everything they knew for a different town. A different town, a different house, different neighbors, different friends.
Even after they had readapted to their new lives in this new town all those years ago, the girl found it difficult to find friends to replace the old ones. None of the kids here were half as interesting as her old friends and small town mindsets made it a slow transition for the girl to become accepted into their new home. But she nonetheless grew to love them. She would miss them, and oh, how that little town would miss her.
The girl was very popular, of course. With her many close girlfriends and many more boys trailing behind her, the pretty girl was known to be well loved. Even in her family, she was her parents’ pampered princess. Linus and Rerun, her little brothers, seldom complained about their partiality in fear of the girl’s wrath.
Despite the girl’s crabby, borderline disagreeable demeanor when she was younger, she was happy to say that as she grew and matured physically, the girl had also calmed that temper of her’s. This shift in her personality also came with utter embarrassment when she thought about how she carried herself when she was younger, constantly fawning over a certain aloof musician. Her brothers, of course, would ardently disagree with the notion that her temper had calmed at all, to which she would then (lovingly) chase them both around the room with her hands ready to pinch until their skin turned blue from the bruising. Her brothers were, for a long time now, the sole subjects of her well contained fury and yet, she loved them more than anyone else in this world. And that was saying a lot, because the girl had a lot of love to give.
The raven-haired miss inadvertently lured love and attraction toward herself in every step she took and every word she spoke, easily eliciting smiles from any passersby she greeted on the streets of her tiny town. But now, for the second time in her life, as she was once again surrounded by empty walls, cardboard boxes, and dusty suitcases, she felt deja vu hit her as if a tide of ice-cold water had crashed over her. The girl, once again, felt utterly, almost irrevocably alone.
The only thought that comforted her at the moment was that although she was moving away from all her friends yet again, she was moving to a place she had thought she’d never see again. A place with people she thought she’d never see again. A place she’d only ever returned to in her dreams.
As she helped carry cardboard boxes to the moving truck, the girl couldn’t help but smile as she remembered her old friends. She wondered what they looked like now, if they’d changed as much as she felt she had. The thought of change suddenly reminded her of a little boy who almost surely was not little anymore.
Schroeder.
The girl remembered how much Schroeder hated change. He loved his schedules, though. And his toy piano. And Beethoven. And once, the girl had been hopeful enough to think he would love her too. Her romanticized view of him slowly disappeared as she got older but back then, the girl sincerely believed they would fall in love and get married. But she was stubborn and once she had a goal, she could never get rid of it, even after eight years.
Even after eight years, the girl’s heart skipped a beat when she thought of him. Even just thinking his name was detrimental to the pattern of her heartbeat. It was because of her embarrassment about her previous love confessions to him, obviously, but whatever the reason may be, she usually avoided thinking about the boy completely, as it took her heart at least a minute or two to return to its usual rhythm.
As she got into the car and bade the little town farewell, the girl daydreamed about the future. When she would move back, would she stay with her old friends or make new ones? Would Charlie Brown, Patty, Violet,
Schroeder
—ahem. Schroeder, even accept her after all this time? Did they miss her? Would they even remember her name when she sees them at school?
They did miss her, of course. They missed her and Linus so much that when news broke that they were moving back, her friends were ecstatic! Junior year was supposed to be the most miserable year of their high school career yet things were already turning up.
Schroeder was eating dinner with Charlie Brown in his room while playing records from his collection, which had grown significantly since he was little, when he found out.
Along with classical music, which Schroeder would never grow out of, he also thoroughly enjoyed listening to the Elvis Presley album his parents bought a few birthdays ago for him.
As the boys ate their dinner, Schroeder’s mother barged in, forgetting to knock with her excitement.
“Boys,” she gasped, as if she’d run up here in a hurry. Charlie Brown and Schroeder eyed her with shock as she regaled them with the story of how she came to find out that their childhood best friends were moving back.
Charlie Brown was overjoyed! The boy looked like he was already planning a houseparty for the two kids they’d known all those years ago, but Schroeder was more unsettled.
Unsettled wasn’t the right word for what Schroeder had felt when his mother had spoken her name, but he didn’t know what else to call it. After all these years, she only existed in his mind. Inspiration for his music! How would he feel about her actually being here physically? Schroeder couldn’t even imagine her all grown up. Whenever he played piano at a concert or recital, Schroeder imagined he was still a little boy with his bright red toy instrument and she was still a little girl with a bright blue dress, leaning over his piano. In his mind, the colors of the scene complimented each other impeccably, but in real life? What if the girl was no longer how he’d imagined her? What if her personality had changed? What if her appearance had changed? What if she bleached her hair?
Horror stricken at the thought, Schroeder sat on his bed in shock as his mother and Charlie Brown excitedly spoke about their not-so-new neighbors. Eventually, they caught a glimpse of the conflicted expression on Schroeder’s face and Charlie Brown went home for the night, wanting to give Schroeder time to process. Whether this was the right thing to do, Charlie Brown wasn’t sure, because Schroeder surely was not going to sleep after hearing this news. Knowing the boy, Schroeder was more likely to stay up all night worrying. Schroeder was a worrier by nature.
Charlie Brown was right to think Schroeder would get no sleep that night. He didn’t sleep one minute because the next day, a girl and her family would move into that vacant house in their neighborhood which was once filled with the sounds of laughter and shrieks from the loving Van Pelts. Would they be the same Van Pelts when they moved back? Schroeder was nervous.
He was so nervous. The boy was so stupid when he was younger. She had literally confessed his love for him countless times! Each time, he brushed her aside, not knowing the rarity of such affection from such a pretty girl. He almost didn’t want to see her when she returned, in fear of combusting into flames at the hot embarrassment he felt of his younger self.
But no. This time, Schroeder was going to treat her right.
This time, Schroeder was not going to miss his shot with her.