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The keys felt like water under his fingers, as Victor moved them. He rarely had to think about it anymore, the movement was as easy as breathing. He couldn’t remember a time when the piano didn’t feel like an extension of himself.
His mother had put him in piano classes very young, and he had thrived. He had won awards, he had won chairs and been invited to prestigious venues. He had been on covers, in interviews, played with the most famous of singers.
Now, he wondered what it had all been for.
The music still came easy to him, but it didn’t make him feel like it once had. He wasn’t sure what that feeling even was anymore. He was sure it had been there, but it felt like a shadow in his mind now. Ungraspable. Something which he had known, but couldn’t fully remember the shape of.
Now, all he felt was hollow instead.
Playing large concert halls, the cheers, the orchestras and the conductors. The sponsors, the producers and directors. The crowds, the applause and the gifts all felt watered out. Empty. Like it drained him more for each time he got up on a stage, plastered a fake smile on his face, and let his fingers dance.
The door to his balcony in the studio was open, the chill spring air blowing in. It moved the curtains, flowing them in. The music flowed out into the courtyard instead, and every now and then someone would pause and look inside. A wistful expression would cross their faces, and then they would walk on, moving on with their lives. Perhaps Victor had brightened their day a little. Perhaps they had forgotten all about it the moment they continued walking. His life felt just so, a beautiful serendipitous moment in time, before the ones who he had entertained went back to their real lives.
He looked down at his hands, and wondered why he continued to play. He had written compositions, and performed them, but it felt like he barely had anything more to write about. His life felt stale. In the beginning he had so much to express. Now, it was only emptiness.
How sad he was.
He shook his head, and started to move over the keys to play something else. It was tentative. Slow. Different from the direct and sharp compositions of his youth.
Movement caught his gaze, and he looked outside.
There was a stone paving just on the other side of the balcony door, where there were usually a couple of tables during the summer. They had not been set out yet.
Now, the stone paving seemed to second as a dance floor.
A man stood there, his movements following the flow of the music Victor played. He had black messy hair, closed eyes with long dark lashes, and he was hauntingly beautiful.
He danced, his movements precise and sure, speaking of years of training. They were beautiful lines - extensions, a flow of grace and feeling. The dancer’s body moved, with each of Victor’s tentative accords. As if he could feel it. As if he knew what the composition was about, even though Victor didn’t.
A story played out in the dancer’s movements, of longing for someone, of reaching out, of worrying about rejection, of being accepted home, of certainty of love. Victor’s chest felt tight, and then free, as if bleeding but without being wounded. As if ice thawing, flowing to a river. As if the dance moved the music, and the music moved the dance.
The feeling in his chest was not foreign.
It was coming back, it was returning home - but perhaps to a changed one.
It was as if the dance was a part of the music, as if it became a second instrument. Victor played the composition again, and the man danced once more. The steps differed from the previous time, but the emotions followed the same story. Victor played it a third time, and by then there were tears hanging in Victor’s lashes, his breath short. No, this was a new feeling as well, this inspiration. He had not felt it in this way before.
Victor abruptly stopped, and the silence made everything feel harsh and empty.
The dancer’s graceful movements stopped too, and he opened his eyes.
Victor stood, hands suddenly sweaty, his heart racing.
“That was beautiful,” the dancer said with a small smile on his lips, as if he had not been the one to make it beautiful. As if it would have been anything at all, if he had not come and created the music with Victor. “I hope I didn’t bother you as you were playing. I felt it in my entire body, I couldn’t help myself.”
“Not at all,” Victor said, swallowing. “I-” Words failed Victor. What could he say? Those easy charming smiles felt far away. He took a step closer. “What is your name?”
“Yuuri,” the dancer said. “I attend the academy. I was on my way but this was just so…” he trailed off. Hope sparked in Victor’s chest. Had Yuuri felt it too?
The academy. A ballet student then. It explained some, but not all. Victor had seen plenty of ballet, plenty of dancers. None had made him feel like this. “What was that?” Yuuri asked.
“I was new,” Victor admitted, bold and unsteady all at once. “I- as you danced, I wrote it.”
“Really?” Yuuri said, blinking. His eyes were wide and dark.
“When you danced, it was as if you were creating music. I’ve never seen that,” Victor said. Heat rose in Yuuri’s cheeks, as if he was embarrassed.
“Oh, I- I’m nothing special, really,” Yuuri said, looking away with a shrug. Victor frowned, frustrated suddenly.
“You made me feel something I haven’t felt in years,” he insisted. “I need to- Can I buy you coffee?”
Yuuri blinked, looked to the side. “I have-” He looked back at Victor, and then suddenly the insecurity in his posture seemed to melt away. Yuuri squared his shoulders, and reached a hand out towards him. “Yes, I would love that.”
Giddiness filled Victor’s chest. He slid his hand into Yuuri’s warm opened one, and followed him out through the balcony doors.