The winter sun had already begun its slow descent, washing the horizon in pale amber light. Snow clung stubbornly to the stone balustrades of the university terraces, and the world felt like it was caught between silence and breath—waiting for something unnamed to happen.
Sebastiano Valezzi sat in the corner of the campus café, untouched cappuccino in front of him, notebook open. But for once, the pages remained blank.
He could still see her—skirt like falling petals, hair moving with the breeze, eyes not just watching the world, but listening to it. There was a softness to her he couldn't define, and yet, something about her presence had unsettled something inside him that had long been silent.
He hadn't touched the piano since that day in autumn. The piano, once his heartbeat, now looked like a wound dressed in polished wood. His father's words still echoed through the walls of memory like thunder long after the storm had passed.
"You were born to be a Valezzi. Not a poet. Not a dreamer. You owe the world perfection."
So, he had given the world silence instead.
But now… now he found himself listening again. To wind. To movement. To the sound of her feet against stone. To the way her presence filled silence rather than interrupted it.
He flipped open his journal, and words began to bloom like frost tracing a forgotten window:
— She dances like the wind owes her a favor.
Like silence is her partner.
And maybe I—just maybe—was meant to watch her, not to play.
The bell above the café door chimed, and Sebastiano looked up on instinct.
It wasn't her.
He wasn't disappointed. That would mean he was waiting.
He wasn't.
Later that evening, as the first stars blinked into a purplish sky, Sebastiano found himself once more beneath the ivy-covered path that overlooked the university's oldest terrace. It wasn't where he planned to be—but his feet had wandered on their own.
And there she was.
Again.
As if time folded in favor of the persistent.
Aria.
She danced.
Not for an audience. Not for applause. Not for attention.
Just... for the wind.
Her arms moved with fluidity, delicate yet powerful, tracing arcs of memory through the air. Her sleeves fluttered like wings. Her eyes were closed. And her feet, though grounded, moved like they were made of breath.
Sebastiano didn't call out to her.
He didn't dare.
Instead, he stayed in the shadows, watching the wind dance with her like an old friend. He didn't even realize he had reached for his pen until ink began to spill thoughts again:
— Some people speak without saying a word.
Some people dance without knowing someone's watching.
She does both.
And I—God help me—am listening again.
Aria turned slowly, her eyes still shut, and let the last movement fall like a sigh. Then, she opened her eyes—
—and saw him.
This time, she didn't look away.
She smiled.
And Sebastiano, for the first time in years, forgot what pain sounded like.
That night, back in his room, Sebastiano stood before the covered piano. His fingers hovered above the cloth but didn't pull it back.
Not yet.
But for the first time since everything shattered, he thought maybe… just maybe… music hadn't left him completely.
Maybe it was simply waiting for her.
The next morning came heavy with gray light. The sun, veiled behind thick winter clouds, seemed hesitant to rise—just like him.
Sebastiano stood at the top of the grand marble staircase, the cold seeping in through the tall windows of the Valezzi villa. The place echoed even when no one spoke, as if it had gotten used to emptiness over time. It always felt like a museum of memories that didn't belong to him.
His coat hung loosely over his shoulders, the same one he had worn the day before when he had seen her. When the wind had danced. When she had smiled. That moment had felt like a new season blooming in his chest.
But that was yesterday.
And today was this.
The distant sound of polished leather shoes tapping against the tile floors grew louder until a tall, stern figure emerged at the end of the hall.
Alessandro Valezzi.
His father.
Sharp as winter itself.
Dressed in his usual charcoal suit, every line crisp, every detail immaculate. The man wore perfection like armor, and distance like cologne.
"Sebastiano," he said without looking at him, adjusting the gold cufflink at his wrist. "You have class today, I assume?"
"Yes," Sebastiano replied, quietly.
"Good." He picked up his briefcase and coat from the butler waiting silently beside him. "And your extracurriculars? The musical society?"
"I told you I'm not participating anymore."
This time, Alessandro looked at him. Not with anger. Not with concern. Just quiet disappointment dressed in indifference.
"You're wasting what was given to you," he said. "But it's your time to waste."
Sebastiano looked away, jaw clenched. "Maybe not everything that's given is a gift."
Silence fell between them like snow.
Alessandro didn't argue. He never did. He simply turned and walked toward the front doors, already lost in the world of meetings and mergers, stocks and expectations. The same world that had pulled him away for most of Sebastiano's life.
Always leaving. Always just a presence in a house, never a presence in his life.
Sebastiano stood there for a long moment after the door closed. The echo of his father's departure lingered like dust in the air.
And just like that, yesterday became a dream.
He walked into the music room—not to play, but to sit.
The grand piano sat in the middle of the room, untouched, draped with a velvet cover that collected more silence than dust. It had been his mother's once. The only thing in the house that still felt like her.
He sat on the bench.
And stared.
His hands stayed in his pockets.
He remembered the way Aria had danced. How she didn't ask permission from the world to move. How she didn't seem to care who saw. How, in a moment, she'd filled a space in him that had been hollow for years.
But she was sunlight, and he had learned to live in the shade.
He looked at the keys. They looked back at him.
— You are not broken,
They say.
But maybe the world only loves the ones who are whole enough to perform.
He closed his notebook.
Tomorrow, he would see her again.
And for now, that would have to be enough.