The concert was over, but the music hadn't left Hyacinth's chest.
The cheering had faded, and the heavy stage lights had dimmed, yet every nerve in his body still trembled as if he were the one who had performed. He walked quietly alongside Gabby through the crowd, the night breeze combing through their hair like a final curtain call.
"Okay, okay, listen to me," Gabby said, practically skipping as he gestured with both hands. "That DRUM SOLO. I swear I almost burst into tears because of the emotions. Like it wasn't even legal to slay that hard."
Hyacinth smiled softly, but his attention remained half-elsewhere, eyes locked on the pavement as the phantom rhythm of Yukimura's solo replayed in his head. Not the notes exactly, but the feeling. The way it rose like a shout and crashed like a storm, like there was something inside it, raw and private. Yukimura had looked so still behind the drums, but the music? The music had been screaming.
He hadn't just played the beat.
He had told a story.
And Hyacinth wanted to answer it.
That night, long after his mom had gone to sleep and the house was cloaked in silence, Hyacinth sat at his desk by the window, a dull lamp as his only light.
His fingers flew across a pencil like they were being chased. Notes spilled onto staff paper, broken and frantic, half-sung under his breath. He kept pressing one hand to his chest, tapping rhythms against his heart, trying to chase the pulse that Yukimura had set in motion.
A verse came first, then the hook, then a bridge that kept falling apart because he didn't know how to express what it felt like to burn without anyone seeing.
Still, he kept writing. He didn't even stop to question if it was good.
All he knew was that it was his.
When he looked down and saw the shape of the chorus on the page, something inside him stilled.
He scrawled the title across the top of the sheet like a secret:
Ashes Stay Warm.
The next day at class, everything felt too slow. The lesson was on rhythmic subdivisions, and the professor was trying to get the students to clap poly-rhythms in pairs. Yukimura, as always, sat with perfect posture, tapping out the 3-over-4 exercise with deadpan precision on the desk in front of him.
Hyacinth, meanwhile, kept glancing at the song folded inside his notebook as if it might combust.
By the time class ended, students gathered their bags with a rush of voices and zippers, eager to leave.
But Hyacinth didn't move.
He watched Yukimura stand, adjust his bag, and turn to leave, before gathering the courage to take a few quick steps forward, blocking his path.
Yukimura blinked at him, brows lifted. "What?"
Hyacinth held out the notebook, the page already open to the handwritten sheet music.
He said nothing. Just offered it.
Yukimura took it with mild confusion, flipping his gaze across the page slowly.
After a long silence, he asked, "…You wrote this?"
Hyacinth nodded.
No smile. No words. Just a pause long enough to ache, his face blank as if the music hadn't moved him at all.
Then, "Sit."
Yukimura turned and gestured at the piano.
Hyacinth obeyed before he could talk himself out of it.
"Play the right hand," Yukimura said, settling on the bench beside him. "I'll do left."
The moment Hyacinth touched the keys, his fingers froze. Not from fear — from awe. He had never played something he'd written with someone else before.
It was shaky, unpolished. Yukimura adjusted for it on the fly, seamlessly filling in chords where Hyacinth hesitated. Once, their hands brushed, and Hyacinth jerked like he'd been shocked, cheeks heating, but Yukimura didn't even blink.
They made it through the first run.
Then a second.
On the third, Yukimura hummed a faint harmony to the chorus.
But when they reached the bridge, he stopped.
"This part," he said, tapping the page, "it builds like it's heading for a key change or some kind of modulation, but then…it just drops back to the verse. It feels like you're running from something."
Hyacinth quietly uncapped his marker and wrote on his pink whiteboard. He turned it toward Yukimura.
"Because I am."
The words sat there, simple but unshakable.
Yukimura stared at him for a moment, expression unreadable.
Then: "Okay."
He returned to the keys. "Let's fix it."
And just like that, they worked.
Hours slipped past unnoticed.
Yukimura took over the piano, experimenting with transitions and passing chords, while Hyacinth scribbled revised lines, reworking melodies and rhythms by ear. They didn't speak much — they didn't have to.
By the time the sun dipped low in the sky, warm light poured across the music room floor.
They finished it together.
Yukimura played the last note with a soft pressure, letting it linger in the air. Then, without looking up, he muttered, "You should submit this."
Hyacinth blinked.
Submit?
Yukimura finally glanced at him. "For the student showcase. The teacher said original compositions are allowed. Didn't you listen?"
Hyacinth hadn't. He was too busy humming the melody in his head all day.
"If you're serious about composing," Yukimura added, rising from the bench, "you need to stop waiting for inspiration and start finishing things. Music isn't a dream. It's a discipline."
He slung his bag over his shoulder. "Think about it."
And he left without waiting for a response.
Hyacinth stayed where he was, bathed in soft ray of sunlight, notebook cradled in his lap.
The warm light spilled over the worn piano bench, mingling with the faint scent of old wood and paper. An ordinary room made sacred by the music that had just been born within it.
He closed his eyes, imagining the way ashes, usually cold and forgotten, yet could somehow still hold warmth. Like a quiet ember waiting to flare up again. It felt like hope wrapped in pain. Like a quiet promise not to let the fire go out. Like the music they'd just made. Like the person who had inspired it.
The soft echo of the last note faded into the room, leaving behind a silence heavy with things neither of them said. Hyacinth's hand still lingered over the keys.
Feeling unsure and trembling. Was this just a first step? Or the beginning of something he wasn't yet ready to grasp?
He grabbed his pink whiteboard once more, turning it over as if to keep it hidden — then scribbled a small message just for himself:
Keep going.
He smiled softly at the reminder, the simple encouragement that music wasn't just sound, it was survival.
Somewhere deep down, Hyacinth knew this song was only the beginning. There would be more struggles, more nights like this.
Chasing a feeling, like someone trying to catch fire from its burning ashes. But if this was the price to tell his story to the whole world… then he was ready.
For a long time, he just stared at the page.
Then, for the first time, he wrote:
Composed by: Hyacinth Flores
Arrangement by: Yukimura Santos
And under it, in faint pencil:
"For the one whose fire I felt before I saw it."
A soft smile tugged at the corners of his lips, tender, uncertain, yet full of quiet hope.
He closed the notebook gently, heart still trembling, knowing this was only the beginning.