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The music room always smelled like old wood and dust that had learned how to be quiet.
Nene stood just inside the doorway for a moment, letting her eyes adjust. Rows of instruments waited in soft disorder: stacked music stands, a chalkboard half-erased with staff lines, a piano sitting at the center like it had been placed there for conversations that required more patience than words.
Hanako was already there.
Of course he was.
He was perched on top of the piano like it was a perfectly reasonable chair and not, technically, a very expensive piece of school property. His legs swung lightly, not touching the floor, not touching anything that mattered.
“You’re late,” he said.
“I’m not,” Nene replied automatically. “You’re early.”
“I like to prepare for emotional experiences in advance.”
“That is not what this is.”
“It could be,” he said brightly.
Nene ignored him, walking up to the piano instead. Her fingers hovered above the keys for a second.
It had been a long time.
Middle school felt like a different life, one where she had once thought that if she could just learn something impressive enough, she could rearrange the way people looked at her. Especially boys. Especially a specific one she now refused to think about too closely.
She had stopped after a few months.
But she remembered one thing.
Only one thing that had stayed behind like a stubborn star refusing to fade.
Claire de Lune.
“You’re thinking too loudly,” Hanako said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Nene exhaled slowly, then sat down on the bench.
The piano keys were colder than she remembered.
For a moment, she just looked at them.
Then she placed her hands down.
The first notes of Claire de Lune didn’t arrive perfectly. They came carefully, like someone reopening a door they weren’t sure still belonged to them.
Soft.
Uneven at first.
Then slowly settling into something familiar.
Hanako stopped swinging his legs.
He didn’t speak.
He didn’t interrupt.
The music room changed shape a little as she played. Not physically, but in that way spaces do when sound starts filling them properly. The dust didn’t disappear, but it started to feel less like neglect and more like memory.
Hanako watched from the piano lid.
Not at her hands.
Not at the keys.
At her.
But not in the way he usually did when he was teasing or bored or pretending not to care.
This was quieter.
Still.
Like he was listening to something underneath the music instead of the music itself.
Nene kept playing.
The melody unfolded gently, like moonlight deciding where to land. Each note felt a little more certain than the last, as if the piano was remembering her as much as she was remembering it.
At some point, she realized her shoulders had stopped being tense.
She didn’t know when that happened.
Hanako shifted slightly, leaning back on his hands.
“…This is the one,” he said softly.
Nene glanced up mid-phrase. “What?”
He tilted his head toward the sound.
“The sky one,” he said. “The one that sounds like it’s trying not to fall apart.”
Claire de Lune.
Moonlight.
Of course he would hear it that way.
Nene almost smiled, but the music carried her back into itself before she could finish the thought.
So she kept playing.
When she reached the softer passage, the one that always felt like it was fading instead of ending, Hanako drifted down from the piano lid. Not fully landing. Just hovering closer, like gravity had become optional but curiosity had not.
He stopped beside her.
Still not touching.
But closer than before.
The room felt smaller in a way that wasn’t uncomfortable.
Just… aware.
Nene’s fingers slowed slightly, but she didn’t stop.
“You used to play this?” Hanako asked.
“I tried,” she admitted.
“For a boy?”
Her hands hesitated for half a beat.
“…Maybe.”
Hanako hummed.
Not teasing. Not sharp.
Just acknowledging.
“That’s very human,” he said.
“I stopped,” Nene added quickly, as if that needed correcting. “I wasn’t very good.”
“You are now,” he said simply.
That made her falter again.
The next chord came out softer than intended.
Hanako looked away then, out the tall window beside the music room. The sky beyond was darkening, blue sliding into night like ink spreading through water.
Stars weren’t visible yet.
But he was looking anyway.
Nene noticed that.
Of course she noticed that.
The music carried her forward anyway, toward the ending she had almost forgotten how to reach.
When she finally let the last notes fall, they didn’t feel like an ending so much as a pause that didn’t want to break.
Silence returned gently.
Hanako didn’t speak right away.
He stayed looking out the window.
Then, quietly:
“You made it sound like something that was trying to remember itself.”
Nene blinked. “That’s not what it is.”
“It is now,” he said.
A pause.
Then, softer:
“I think the moon would like it.”
Nene looked down at her hands on the keys.
“That’s a weird thing to say.”
“It’s accurate,” he replied.
Finally, he looked at her.
Really looked.
And for once, there wasn’t a joke waiting behind it.
Just something calm.
Something that felt dangerously close to honest.
“You should play more often,” he said.
“I’m not that good,” she repeated, quieter this time.
Hanako tilted his head.
“That’s not what I said.”
Nene didn’t respond.
Because if she did, she wasn’t sure what would come out.
So instead, she lifted her hands from the piano and let the silence settle properly between them.
Outside, the first faint stars began to appear.
Hanako noticed them immediately.
Of course he did.
But he didn’t leave yet.
Neither did she.