Aika's Perspective: A World Beyond the Canvas
The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the windows of the music room, casting soft golden streaks along the floorboards. The air smelled faintly of aged wood and paper, carrying the remnants of a thousand melodies played before today. It was quiet now—only the occasional rustling of pages and the soft, lingering echoes of the piano filling the space.
Aika sat cross-legged on the floor, her back resting against the cool wooden surface of the piano. The weight of her sketchbook pressed against her lap, its worn edges rough against her fingertips. She traced them absentmindedly, flipping through pages filled with unfinished drawings.
Each sketch told a story, some half-formed, others abandoned before they could find their meaning.
She hated looking at them.
Not because they were bad, but because they felt… incomplete. Like pieces of herself scattered across the pages, waiting to be something more, but never quite reaching it.
Aika exhaled slowly, biting the inside of her cheek.
Even after everything today—after drawing again, after losing herself in the moment, after feeling something again—it still wasn't enough.
There was still this lingering sense of something missing.
She hated that feeling.
From the piano bench, the quiet melody of a few scattered notes drifted through the air. It was absentminded, almost lazy, but not careless. Riku's fingers moved over the keys with an ease that made it seem like the piano was an extension of him, like he wasn't even trying but still managed to create something beautiful.
Aika glanced at him.
His usual smirk wasn't there. Instead, his gaze was distant, unfocused. He wasn't playing a song. Just fragments. Pieces of something unfinished.
Just like her sketches.
Something about that realization made her chest tighten.
"…You're thinking too hard again."
Aika blinked, snapping out of her thoughts.
She looked up to see Riku watching her, his golden-brown eyes sharp yet unreadable.
Her brow furrowed. "I'm not—"
"You are." His lips quirked up slightly as he tapped a single key. "Your face does that weird thing when you overthink."
Aika scowled. "I do not have a weird thinking face."
Riku smirked, shifting his weight lazily. "Oh, you definitely do. It's kind of funny, actually."
Aika's annoyance flared, heat rising to her cheeks. She opened her mouth to argue, but then she saw it—the quiet amusement in his expression.
It wasn't like his usual teasing.
It was softer.
Less about messing with her and more about… grounding her.
Like he was saying, It's okay. You don't have to figure everything out right now.
Her irritation faded.
She exhaled, rolling her pencil between her fingers.
"…Do you ever feel like something is missing?" she asked softly.
It wasn't a question she had planned on asking.
But now that it was out, she realized how much it had been weighing on her.
Riku didn't answer right away.
Instead, he pressed down on a key, letting the note hum in the quiet space between them.
Then—
"All the time," he admitted.
Aika felt her breath catch.
She hadn't expected him to say that.
She had expected another joke, a smirk, some offhanded remark about how obviously he had everything figured out.
But he had just… answered.
And somehow, that meant more than she could explain.
Her fingers curled slightly against her sketchbook.
"…And what do you do when that happens?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Riku's fingers hesitated for the briefest second over the keys.
Then, he started playing again.
Slow, steady notes.
Not a full song. Just a melody.
"I keep going," he said simply. "Even if it's messy. Even if it doesn't make sense yet."
Aika stared at him.
It sounded so easy when he said it.
But she knew it wasn't.
She knew how hard it was to keep creating when you weren't sure if it would ever be enough.
To keep moving forward when everything felt incomplete.
And yet—
Maybe that was the answer.
Maybe she wasn't supposed to wait for everything to make sense first.
Maybe the missing pieces would only come together if she kept moving forward.
Her grip on her sketchbook tightened.
She took a slow breath.
"…Then I'll keep going too," she murmured.
She expected him to make a sarcastic comment.
To smirk, roll his eyes, say something about how obviously she should keep going.
But instead—
He just smiled.
A quiet, knowing smile.
"Good," he said. "About time."
Aika felt something shift inside her.
Something small.
Something steady.
She looked back at her blank page.
Then, without hesitation, she pressed her pencil down against the paper.
Not overthinking.
Not second-guessing.
Just letting the lines happen.
---
Riku's Perspective: A Step Forward
Riku didn't know why he had been honest with her.
Normally, he would have turned it into a joke. Brushed it off.
But when Aika had asked him that question, her voice carrying the weight of something she wasn't sure she could say aloud, something about it had stopped him.
Because the truth was—
He did feel like something was missing.
All the time.
Maybe that was why he played the way he did.
Maybe that was why he could never quite finish a song.
But for some reason, telling her that didn't feel uncomfortable.
It felt… natural.
Like she would understand.
And now, as he watched her sketch, pencil gliding across the page, he felt something settle inside him.
She was drawing again.
And she wasn't hesitating.
Riku played another note, matching the quiet rhythm of her pencil strokes.
Neither of them spoke.
But they didn't need to.
Because even in silence—
They understood.
They weren't finished yet.
But they weren't alone.
And for now—
That was enough.