Dream Lantern (A Collab Story)

3

Chapter 3~ Back to Practice
{Flashback}
It was 6 pm, concert night in Itomori high school auditorium. Next up was me, I headed up the stage slowly and nervously. Leaf was always there to support me everytime, now that she is gone, it’s like a new part of my life had just begun.

“Ash, you’ve got this!” Leaf would always say and hug me tightly.

I sat at the piano, hands up, fingers ready to glide gracefully across the keys and amaze the audience.  The piece I decided to play was Love’s Sorrow (piano version) for this competition.

I was determined to get first place, for Leaf.

~The Key to Success is to Keep Going With Confidence ~

Tokyo Japan, January 28th, 2009
[Dawn’s POV]
{Back into their present day}
Me and Ash had headed back home to Tokyo on a metro. It was a good day yesterday, Ash finally decided to play the piano once again. We decided to head to Ash’s apartment after school and practice there.

“Ugh, I need to clean my piano now.” He complained and opened the lights to his storage room.

“I can help, why does it look like that?” I asked, pointing to the pink tarp/carpet thing draped over the huge piano.

“It’s to keep the dust away from the actual piano. Help me get it off.” Ash said, moving toward it and placed his hand on the dusty tarp.

“Alright.” I said and moved towards the large piano. With a hard pull the tarp came right off and onto the floor.

“Wow, that piano looks nice.” I complemented, looking at it with glowy eyes in awe.

It was a grand piano, black with beautiful white and black shiny keys. The petals are golden brownish and looks antique, some sheet music is still present on the stand next to it.

“So Ash, since when was the last time you played this piano?” I asked him out of curiosity.

“Uhh, I dunno, 2 years ago?” Ash replied, not sure of himself.

“Y-you remember the basics, right?” I asked him again.

“Mhm, I’ll play a warm up song then.” Ash replied.

He played a melody that sounded like twinkle twinkle little star so I started humming to it. After 30 minutes full of lullaby songs, we finally started to look for a good music piece to play at the Itomori Autumn Festival concert.

“Hey, how about this one?” I said, showing him a music sheet to the song Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi.

“Uh, sure.” Ash said, taking a good look after the music sheet.

He then put the phone onto a stand, turned the brightness up, and started playing the first measure. Halfway through the piece, he suddenly stopped and put his hand on his face, meaning he had somehow burst into tears.

“Oh no Ash, what’s wrong??” I went towards Ash, embracing him into a hug and tried to calm him down.

“I, I can't hear the notes, please, someone help me. I can't take this torture anymore.” Ash silently said and started to cry even more.

“Shhh, it's okay Ash, calm down, I’m here with you.” I said, patting Ash on the back.

“I can't keep playing.” Ash silently said in a creepy way. “If this keeps happening, I will slowly lose my mind.”

“Ash, please calm down, you'll be fine.” I said over and over again until Ash finally stopped crying and looked at me.

“Dawn, do you really think I should start playing the piano again?” Ash asked me.