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The wind blew with a gentle whisper.
The fragile leaves fell in a downward spiral, gently covering the lake occasionally with leaves splashed in gold and copper like a veil. Breaking the transparent stillness.
Mist and fog stretched across the horizon, perhaps what lay at the far end of the lake.
But on this side, Susie sat, sitting next to Kris. Where the leaves continued their course, falling one by one, touching the surface with an almost silent sound.
Susie could hear notes hidden in them.
She unearthed a long-forgotten memory, secretly perpetuated every time she heard them.
As a child, she used to pretend the leaves on the ground were piano keys.
She arranged them, one leaf next to the other. It didn't matter that her hands were stained with a bit of mud and wet with autumn dew.
She stepped on them one by one, imagining notes in her head.
Notes and melodies of songs that stuck with her as she walked through the crowded streets of cities full with both humans and monsters.
But so empty to someone like her.
Melodies of a mother's warm hands holding her daughter's small hands. Wiping away salty tears with her thumbs.
Melodies of freshly baked bread and sweets from candy stores behind unreachable display cases.
Melodies of the laughter and happy shouts of children playing tag. Their knees scraped but ignoring the temporary pain for the joy that filled their chests.
Susie didn't know the lyrics to the songs, but she could imagine with her eyes closed what it would feel like, when she stepped on the leaves.
It played a concert just for her.
So she plucked a leaf from the barely green ground beneath them.
She dropped it, watching it float and circle before placing a light kiss on the water.
She smiled to herself.
And Kris turned their head towards her.
They didn't ask anything, but their eyebrow arched in a way that reminded her of a puppy tilting its head in curiosity. Susie found herself answering without being able to help herself.
"When I was little, I made pianos out of leaves," she confessed softly, as if afraid of breaking the fragility of it.
"I'd step on one, and then another, and the notes would play in my head."
"Heh... They'd sound very different on a real piano, wouldn't they, Kris?"
They said nothing, but their eyes softened. Then Kris made the same smile they had, when they went to eat at QC's Diner.
They didn't say anything, but they also picked up a leaf and dropped it next to hers.
Now two musical notes played in a chord.
Her chest tightened a little.
She then remembered that she had already told them, not so long time ago, about the real piano.
The one she saw in a community center, with a sign that said "public," but which she had never been able to play.
She also remembered how, upon hearing her, Kris had said without hesitation, "I'll teach you."
A promise she still kept with her, warmer than any borrowed coat.
And now, seeing their silly smile as Susie looked out at Kris, they said nothing, but reached out a little.
They placed a hand on her knee, lightly, barely a touch. They had a little bit of mud on their fingertips.
A small gesture, but so firm that Susie shuddered.
How strange how she was always the first to touch them without hesitation, but when Kris did it first, it made her feel so different.
Their hand on her knee was as if they were reminding her that the promise still stood.
As if she didn't need to repeat it, because Kris wasn't one to forget such things.
The lake filled with leaves, with invisible notes falling one after another.
And for the first time in a long time, she didn't feel it was ridiculous to believe that...
She didn't feel it was a waste of time waiting for something good.
Perhaps that promise would be more resilient than the fragile, fleeting leaves.
With Kris, the impossible seemed simple. Natural.
With Kris, she could dare to trust that some promise wouldn't be broken.
She lifted another leaf, let it fall, and smiled as she imagined the sound.
She wasn't alone in that made-up concert.
She never would be again.