“You play the piano so well.”

My fingers stopped playing. I lifted my eyes from the black and white keys and smiled at the little girl standing at the doorway, shifting a little on my worn-out piano bench and gesturing for her to sit. She bore striking resemblance to the one whom I once loved with all my heart. Obligingly, she scrambled onto the seat right next to me and put her eager little hands on the keyboard, her dainty feet swinging freely and excitedly underneath.

Smiling, I petted her head and turned to face her. “Thank you, sweetie. Would you like to learn how to play it? I could teach you,” I offered.

“Momma says my hands are too tiny to play the piano,” she continued with a soft pout, while exploring the few white keys that were within her reach, resulting in a number of clangs that resonated in the breezy music room.

“Nonsense,” I laughed, giving her an encouraging wink. “Your momma should know better, knowing that your uncle Hyukjae started playing since he was three. He taught me all that I know. Your hands are the perfect size for learning it. Do you trust uncle Donghae?” I chuckled. Seemingly motivated, she then proceeded to show me her best rendition of my Impromptu Opus 90 with the few white keys that she had familiarized herself with in the last two minutes. When she realised that her playing and mine were completely different, she started belting out the melody she had in her head that she could not express upon the black and white keys of the piano.

Chuckling, I played along with her and told her what a beautiful singer she was. She beamed in pride and stared up at me. “Can you play something for me, pretty please uncle Donghae?”

“Of course,” I said, flipping my book of classical music to the index page. “Which song would you like me to play for you?”

“This one,” she babbled, pointing at a familiar title I knew far too well. “Chopping!”

I couldn’t help laughing out loud. “Dear, his name is Chopin, pronounced ‘shaw-pahn’, not ‘chopping’.”

“Chopping,” she insisted, a mischievous glint in her eye. “I wanna hear you play chopping!”

A gust of wind suddenly blew into the room, messing up the pages and startling me. When the pages came to rest, my eyes fixated on the title of the next sonata, its page lightly scribbled on but heavily crumpled, with obvious yellowing fingerprints smudged around the corners of the pa