Kai left me at the front doors of the school. I had a feeling that he was skipping class again, but I said nothing as I watched him walk away.

It was actually quite nice inside the school during the early hours of the morning, when there were only quiet, sparse footsteps echoing throughout the hall. I wandered around listlessly, afraid to go out into the gardens and run into Baekhyun again. However, my reluctance to talk to Baekhyun was only part of the reason I was inside the school; there were other places to go outside, places he would not know of.

I was drifting through the empty halls of the school was because I was looking for music.

I thought of Kai’s whistling. Even of Baekhyun’s scribbled notes that were haphazardly slapped together. But most of all, I was thinking of the silence that up until recently, had comforted me. Silence was not the fickle chatter that surrounded me at school. It was not the awkward words I exchanged with my brother. I appreciated it for everything it was not, because I did not like to dwell on what it was.

Silence is honest, reflective loneliness. You are not silent when you are with someone else. Even when words are left unsaid. You hear the timbre of his heart, the rise and fall of his chest. Real silence happens in the night, when you are alone in a room with the doors and windows shut. You cannot escape yourself when you are silent.

In many ways, music is like silence. You can become immersed in your instrument, in your voice. When a wrong note sounds out, even if no one else will ever know, you will know. You cannot lie to yourself when you create music.

I stopped in front of the music room. Paused for a moment out of habit to listen for someone else’s playing. Early in the morning, there were be no trumpets playing and no choir singing. I turned the knob of the thick oak doors, wincing when it creaked slightly.

The music room was filled with expensive instruments, all imported. It was quite incredible that the school was so confident in its wealth that it didn’t worry about theft or damage. Then again, most of the students at the school had their own equally expensive instruments. I was an oddity, marveling at the richness of it all.

In the centre of the room, a grand piano was set up for the morning choir class. I sat down on the hard piano bench, and placed my fingers on the keys. I closed my eyes, and started to play. It was a horrible noise that I was making, but I didn’t stop. If I stopped, I knew I would not touch the piano for a very long time afterwards.

Somewhere between B minor and A major, when my fingers were no longer stiff, when my notes were not played in extremes of Pianissimo and Fortissimo, when my waist softened and my heart leaned toward the keys – sometime when I liked what I was playing, someone started clapping softly.

Someone else had also come to find music.

Perhaps we could find it together.