Quiet | BTS ✓

7

After Hoseok leaves, Yoongi faces the piano once again, lost in his own thoughts. How can Aria still seem so unbelievably strong after going through so much? She lost everything she held close to her heart so suddenly. One moment, she had her whole future planned out, much like he did. But the difference was that Aria wanted that future to happen. Yoongi's future was forced and unwelcome, whereas Aria had her perfect life laid out so beautifully.

And in a cruel twist of fate, all of it was ripped from her. So harshly, so heartlessly, everything changed. Yet she picked her broken pieces up off the floor and glued them back together with her own two hands and began to walk forward again even though the opposite would be expected.

Yoongi didn't know such strength could exist within one single person, yet here she is. Fate brought them together for their singular love of music and their passion for creating stories using the instruments that so easily sing beneath their fingertips.

After hearing the story of her past, Yoongi feels mixed emotions stirring in his mind. He is proud of this woman whom he has just met for overcoming the ultimate tragedy and finding a new passion among her mourning of her losses. He feels so connected to Aria, and that terrifies him. They are strangers who met by chance in a dim music room as melancholy notes floated through the air, a story of loss and sadness coming to life through the girl's hands.

Yoongi lets his fingers absentmindedly glide across the keys, playing nameless melodies as he tries to sort out the puzzle forming in his mind. He's unsure of what this partnership with Aria will contain; whether she will even want to go through with it is a mystery to him. She is so hard to read, and the only time he's ever been sure of her emotions was when he heard her play.

Every other encounter with her, she's had her guard up, regarding Yoongi as what he is: a stranger. He almost hates himself for how he feels about her because like he's told himself over and over again, that's all they are to each other. They're strangers who've known of each other's existences for 24 hours.

How can someone create such a monumental impact on someone in 24 hours? Yoongi can't understand this. He's lost. He's lost because while he's never felt more confused about something, he's also never felt more sure. How is this possible? How can he feel two completely opposite emotions about something as simple as one person?

But in reality, this one person is far from simple. Yoongi noticed it the moment he heard her play. Only someone truly special can play the way that she played that night. Maybe it was a coincidence that Yoongi walked in on her playing last night. Maybe it was fate. But one thing he knows for sure: he can't get her out of his head.

Thunder rolls in the distance, Hoseok's words ringing true about the upcoming storm. Yoongi sighs, feeling the emptiness creep inside his heart like he feels every time he has to leave this instrument behind.

He stands from the bench and stretches his tired limbs out before grabbing his belongings and making his way to his car, smiling to himself when he smells the distant scent of the incoming rain. To him, rain is nature's music. Yoongi creates stories with the piano, while nature tells its own stories through the raindrops, through the thunder. Nature is an artist, painting the sky with lightning and dousing everything in its path with the secrets held within the drops of water.

Everyone has secrets, even nature. They all tell their secrets in some way, whether it be outright voicing them in a moment of bravery, writing them down in a journal that nobody will ever read or, like Yoongi, caressing the keys of a piano whilst whispering his secrets into the music, knowing that only those special enough to hear the music for what it truly is will understand.

Like Yoongi understood Aria. Like Aria understood Yoongi.

True musicians tell a story. They tell their story. The story Yoongi tells is one he's had to keep to himself for years. The story of how his heart belonged to music while his soul was being held captive by his parents. He wasn't free. He couldn't be free. For the longest time, he thought he would never be free. But now that he is, every note he plays on the piano is part of his story. His story of silence. His story of feeling trapped and misunderstood. His story of freedom.

Aria's story is one of sadness. Longing. Regret. Her story is just beginning to be told, and if Yoongi can help her tell her story, even for just a chapter of it, that's enough. Because if he had just let his uncle do that for him, he could've been truly happy a long time ago. But he shut everyone out and dealt with everything on his own.

Yoongi can sense that Aria is going down the same path he once wandered down. She wants to do this alone. She doesn't want to let anyone else in. She doesn't want anyone to hear her secrets, to hear her story. But after hearing just a moment of what she truly feels inside, he can't help but feel drawn to help her. To show her the path that he is on now.

24 hours. That is how long Yoongi has known Aria.

And he's already become so determined to help her tell her story to everyone willing to listen to it.

Because it's a beautiful story underneath all of the pain she feels. A story of strength, of perseverance. A story of losing her first love but finding her second. A story of loss; a loss so great that any other person would've walked away. Any other person would have withered away, their petals falling to the floor, warped and forgotten by everyone as the beauty fades away, replaced by only memories. But not her. She stopped for a moment. Only for a moment. She stopped to mourn the loss of her parents.

But then she slowly stood back up and took a step forward. Then another. And another.

Aria is special. And it only took Yoongi 24 hours to realize that.