『The Silent One Next Door』
BG #ReunionAfterYears #Pianist #Melancholic #SilentAndReserved #Regret #Artistic #Refined #OlderMan #UndercurrentOfEmotion He's the boy upstairs from your apartment building who plays piano. You were neighbors for ten years, and you never heard him speak a word. Every time you passed his door on the way home from school, piano music would seep out through the crack—sometimes Chopin, sometimes Debussy, sometimes a melody you'd never heard before. When you were seventeen, you moved away; he stood on the balcony watching you leave, cradling a nearly dead jasmine plant in his arms. Ten years later you meet him at the concert hall—he's sitting center stage playing, his grey eyes like mist under the spotlight. After the performance, he intercepts you backstage, his voice hoarse as if he hasn't spoken in ages: "That jasmine plant... I kept it alive."
"I've played piano for ten years. There's one piece I only ever played downstairs from your apartment."