Truth be told I wanted to fall in love. It was as simple as that. No other flowery prose to back it up, or any other justification to reason out or rationalize this one want. I just wanted to fall in love. Pure and simple.

I wanted to know what it was like to fully let go of my inhibitions and let my emotions run rampant and free. Be emancipated from these walls that have built themselves around me. I wanted to be overwhelmed and overpowered by strong passions and be enveloped in such rapture that I'm left convulsing within myself.

I wanted to let go.

And it was exactly these thoughts that plagued me that one fateful day I walked down the corridors of the Piano Department at the College of Music where I studied.

My dejected footsteps echoed down the wooden floor and acoustic walls as I made my way down towards the main lobby. My maestro had, once again expressed his disappointment in my lack of progress in the piano. He said I lacked feeling, that I lacked the musicality, that I did not draw out the emotions demanded of a piece of music. He said that I was too robotic, too mechanical, too much like a wooden soldier playing with no life, putting no expression in the music.

It felt like sharp cold stabs from rusty sporks into my heart. What part of my playing was maestro dissatisfied with? I played all the notes accurately, following all the dynamics perfectly and to a T, yet maestro still shook his head and clucked his tongue at me, saying I was still not enough.

He said I was still too controlled.

And it was at that moment that I heard it. Soft, flowing music, a beautiful melody crying out with an intensity that filled the corridors. My feet found their way towards the source of the sound, and I found myself closing my eyes as I pressed my ear to the wooden doors of the piano practice room. The sound vibrated through the panels as the soulful piano melody drifted trough the air. Beethoven's Piano Sonata #8 in C minor, Pathetique, second movement, the Adagio Cantabile.

I couldn't breathe as each note struck chords in my heart that I never even knew existed, and shivers ran all over my body as as the slow, intimate, songlike legato theme flooded my senses. I fell down to my knees as the music reached its powerful crescendo and I'm crashing into myself completely and utterly overwhelmed by the emotions drawn out from the middle register. My heartbeat followed the rocking triplet rhythm that descended into the soft concluding chords.

My analytical mind knew the lapses in the beats and persistent disregard to time counts for certain notes, but it didn't matter. All there was, was music, pure and raw, and my heart ached, sending unshed tears to my eyes. And as moisture pooled in my eyes I snuck one furtive glance through the tiny crack of the partially opened door. Right there, on the sleek ebony Steinway concert grand piano, was the most beautiful creature I have ever laid my sight on in my entire life. Oh, I knew who he was, who didn't? But this was my first time seeing him in his element, and there were no words to even attempt to describe the way he looked.

From the large glass windows behind him, a soft sunset light spattered a faint orange glow upon him as he continued to play, casting his pale skin with an ethereal glow. His eyes were closed on his peaceful face as his head rocked back and forth moving in time with his hands as his fingers skillfully moved over the ivory keys.

Nichkhun Horvejkul.