Quiet | BTS ✓

9

As Yoongi travels down the ever-familiar hallway on the way to the music room, he stops just outside the closed door as he realizes he hears music. But it's not just piano that he hears.

Slowly and silently, Yoongi opens the door slightly to peek into the room and what he sees and hears nearly brings him to his knees. Aria is playing the cello.

She has a laptop open on a chair, and it's playing what seems to be a pre-recorded track of her playing a beautiful melody on piano.

Seated next to the laptop, Aria has a cello placed between her legs, her right hand holding the bow ever so delicately as she lets it glide across the strings, her left hand commanding the cello to play the notes she feels in her heart alongside the piano track.

Her eyes are closed as she fully immerses herself into the music, and again, Yoongi hears her sadness; he hears her confession of the loneliness she feels and how badly she wishes for it to change.

Her face has an expression of pain on it. She's hurting and the only way she can express that is through her music. Her beautiful, life-changing music that has Yoongi close to tears. How can someone capture emotions so vividly without needing to speak a word? How did Yoongi get this privilege to hear such a beautiful form of art? Aria can not only make the piano tell her story, but she can also make the cello do the same thing.

As the song comes to its climax, Yoongi's grip on the doorknob tightens to the point of pain. Her song is a perfect mix of pain and beauty, of loneliness and acceptance. On the surface, it is truly a beautiful piece. But Yoongi knows how to listen to music; he knows how to truly listen to the message being portrayed.

After the song ends, Aria's eyes flutter open. And again, Aria and Yoongi's eyes meet.

She stares at him with a lost expression on her face. Almost as if she's asking him why he won't leave her alone like everyone else does. Almost as if she's asking him why he hasn't given up.

Yoongi sighs and he finds his eyes wandering over to the piano. He sees the sheet music laying on the piano and looks back to Aria with his eyebrows raised, silently asking her if he can look at them.

She gulps before slowly nodding her head as she closes her laptop, and Yoongi makes his way to the sheets, picking them up and looking over them. They're the sheets for the piano half of the duet she was just playing.

"Can I play this with you?" Yoongi asks hesitantly, hoping that she doesn't push him away again. He's invaded her privacy yet again, but this time, he won't feel sorry for it because she doesn't seem angry. She seems curious about this stranger in her life now.

She bites her lip before nodding and standing up. She moves the chair and cello over next to the piano and positions herself so now that they're both sitting down with their instruments, they can see each other's faces.

She looks at him for a moment, almost as if she's asking if he's sure about this.

Yoongi nods encouragingly at her. "Have you never played with someone before?"

She shakes her head.

"We'll guide each other. Just look at me if you feel lost," Yoongi says, hoping that Aria knows what he means.

He means that if she feels the grip on her emotions pulling her back down into the darkness, all she has to do is look at Yoongi and he'll pull her back out.

Aria looks down at the ground for a moment before looking Yoongi in the eyes, and the look in them confirms that she understood him. She nods and turns her attention to the cello as Yoongi turns his own attention to the sheet music in front of him.

And they begin to play.

Softly, Yoongi comes in with the piano as Aria joins in with the cello, bringing the two instruments together in harmony, almost as if it's a dance between the two. Yoongi uses his own emotions of his self doubt, loneliness and despair to fuel himself to fall into her music, and he can hear her own pain as she plays alongside him.

Since Yoongi is sight reading, he has to keep his main focus on the sheet music, though every part of his soul is telling him to watch the girl next to him. And it doesn't help that he can see Aria stealing glances at the side of his face as they're playing together flawlessly.

He continues intertwining his own emotions with hers, hearing his own story being told through the piano as well as echoing her own story back to her, wordlessly showing her that he hears her and understands her. She does the same, and they continue into the song, slowly becoming one being instead of two broken forms piecing together their futures with their own two hands.

Yoongi can't help but look over at Aria, needing to see her lost in the music again. But when he looks over to her, he sees her... She's not lost in her own pain like she was when he heard her play this the first time. She's staring at him, watching him cautiously and carefully as she plays her story while simultaneously listening to his own. Although she composed the piano part of this as well as the cello part, she can hear his own secrets being whispered through the song.

Their two stories are tangling together, both of their roots intertwining to form one large, blooming tree in the atmosphere as the song comes to its climax, Yoongi and Aria both letting out their unspoken words not only to their instruments, but to each other.

The song ends as delicately as it began, leaving both musicians in the stillness that always occurs after an emotionally charged piece is finished. A stillness that is still being filled with unspoken words, unspoken stories and unspoken secrets. Without speaking a word, Yoongi and Aria hear each other.

Yoongi has never felt such an intense connection to another human being before; hearing her play a solo piece was what drew him towards her and what her story entails.

But playing with her... there are no words to describe what he feels in this moment.

All he knows is that a connection was made between the two musicians tonight.