There are moments that vanish as quickly as they come.
And then, there are others…
That return like echoes—louder the second time.
The afternoon sky was heavy with silver. Valeria sat beneath a pale dome of clouds, threatening snow but holding back, as if the heavens were unsure whether the world below could take another flake of winter.
Sebastiano leaned on the stone rail of the old university courtyard, a worn journal clutched to his side. He wasn't hiding, not exactly, but he wasn't meant to be found either. The practice rooms were full of life—too full. Laughter, footfalls, piano scales, voices chasing each other down the corridors.
It was too much noise for someone who had spent years wrapped in silence.
He turned toward the west wing—a place he rarely glanced at, except today something caught his eye.
Or rather… someone.
She was there.
Aria.
A story in motion.
Above him, on a terrace lightly dusted with snow, she danced. No music played—at least, not for anyone else. But she didn't need it. Her long coat fluttered behind her like wings as she spun, one foot gliding across the stone, arms swaying like silk in the wind. Her hair, loosened from its braid, flew wildly across her face, her eyes closed as if she trusted the sky not to let her fall.
She wasn't dancing to be seen.
She was dancing to feel alive.
Sebastiano's breath caught. It wasn't just beautiful.
It was haunting.
She moved like the wind remembered her name.
He reached for his journal, almost on instinct, flipping to a blank page with trembling fingers.
— She moves like winter forgot to be cold.
As if snow is only an extension of her soul—fragile, fleeting, divine.
I saw her once. But I didn't really see her until now.
Maybe it's true… sometimes the first meeting doesn't leave a mark. It's the second that leaves a scar.
He paused, his pen hovering.
What was this ache in his chest? This unfamiliar urgency?
Her foot slipped slightly on the snow, and she laughed—a sound too far away to hear, but he could see it in her face. Unapologetic. Radiant. Real.
Sebastiano didn't even realize he was smiling. It was small, hesitant, and it faded quickly—but it was there.
Something inside him stirred. A note played in his mind. A key pressed, low and hesitant, in the back of his thoughts.
Not from the piano.
From her.
The sky darkened slightly, clouds shifting like tired brushstrokes across fading light. Below, the courtyard had emptied out, but Sebastiano remained frozen in place, his fingers still pressed around his pen as if letting go would break something sacred.
She didn't know he was watching. And he wasn't sure he wanted her to.
Aria moved with such abandon that it almost hurt to witness it. Her dance wasn't flawless—it was wild, raw, the kind that ignored the boundaries of rhythm and form. It wasn't meant for the stage. It was meant for the soul.
Her coat fluttered open as she twirled again, revealing a flowing, crimson skirt beneath. The kind that clung to the wind, making her look like a brushstroke painted onto the winter air. She reached toward the sky for something invisible—maybe memory, maybe light. And in that moment, Sebastiano realized he wasn't watching a performance.
He was watching a girl beg the wind to remember her.
A snowflake landed on his cheek, unnoticed.
He lowered his eyes to the journal again.
—There's something about the way she disappears into the air—
Like she's been dancing with ghosts all her life.
Like she's not afraid of vanishing.
But I am.
He hated how the words spilled from him so easily now.
He'd spent years guarding his silence like a fortress, sealing every feeling beneath a piano he no longer touched. But now... she came like winter sunlight—gentle, impossible, and just warm enough to hurt.
Aria slowed, her body stilling mid-turn as she finally opened her eyes.
For one moment—the world narrowed.
She looked down.
And their eyes met.
Sebastiano didn't move.
Neither did she.
Even from the terrace, even through the wind and the distance and the ache of the season, something unspoken passed between them. Not recognition. Not understanding.
But something.
She didn't wave. She didn't smile.
She simply looked at him.
And then—like she was afraid that the stillness might break something inside her—she turned and walked away.
The wind picked up again, as if to carry her with it.
Sebastiano exhaled only when she was gone.
The corridor was long, hushed, and dimly lit, and each step Sebastiano took echoed faintly off the marble floor.
The encounter should have been nothing—a passing moment, a coincidental glance. And yet, it lingered. As if her eyes had left fingerprints on the air between them.
His journal now sat quietly inside his coat, pressed to his chest like a secret he wasn't yet ready to share. He didn't understand it. Not fully. But something inside him whispered that this wasn't the kind of girl you met twice by accident.
He walked aimlessly across the university halls, the clatter of distant conversations and laughter feeling strangely detached, like a soundtrack playing behind glass. Around him, the world was moving. But inside, something was standing still.
He found himself beneath the old archway near the library garden. The trees there were bare now, but the ground was littered with stubborn leaves—crimson and gold, clinging to earth like they weren't ready to be forgotten. Just like the feeling in his chest.
He sat.
And for the first time in a long while, he opened his journal not to run from something—but to remember.
— She didn't smile.
She didn't speak.
But she looked at me like I was real. Not the name they whispered, not the boy who once played for crowds. Just... me.
And it terrifies me more than applause ever did.
— Sometimes the first meeting is like rain on glass—fleeting, soft, a blur you forget once the sun returns.
But the second... the second is where the story begins.
That's when the ache starts to write itself into memory.
He closed the book again and rested his head back against the cold stone wall.
The truth was—he didn't want to care.
He didn't want to be stirred by a girl who danced with the wind and stared without fear. He didn't want his silence disturbed, didn't want the echo of her skirt to live in the spaces music once did.
But she was already there.
And she wasn't leaving.
Not yet.