Birthright
Like all things, the beginning was simple. Yasu's footing had been firm, feet planted squarely on ground -- there was no accounting for what had happened.
Precisely, it had begun when he had found a recording of '100 Greatest Rock Songs'. Glasses adjusted and tape on play, Layla's imminent force struck home. The filigree of the guitar, the bent of its percussion: they had created a temporary stasis where the world's physical walls were torn raw. Ren may have hated Eric Clapton, but in-midst of their studio's stale air, power swelled.
So when Reira walked up to him, Clapton's blaring vocals were his mind's entrenchment. Her footsteps went unnoticed until the plane of her snub-nose was level against his. Then, those volumed notes hung in the air between them. Unsteadily. With dim recognition, he was able to discern: power was one thing, deadly sinuousness firmly another. Vocals creeping round like a vice, the mood around him had suddenly diverged.
"What's this?" Reira said, voice soft. The look she shot at him was little short of furious. "Do you have any idea what this song means?"
That's right, he thought, too late. His epiphany hit him well and true, a well-aimed coda fired at the gut. Her name--
For a moment, he was afraid she'd snap his headphones off and fling them at the wall. She didn't.
Instead, she broke down into tears.
"There, there," Yasu said. What could he say to a girl who curved the shape of her sorrow into melody? Into a fulcrum of its lilt? Nothing, he found. He'd always been clumsy at comforting others, but that didn't mean he couldn't try. So he did, wordlessly, until her sobs weakened to relative quietude.
"Like a fool, I fell in love with you, turned my whole world upside down," was audible as the tape wound to a halt.
He had thought she was angry, but now she was only sad -- bearing the weight of words impossible to encompass. Most never saw those brittle edges; a sadness tinged with regret that made her seem more than her sixteen years. A girl suited for fluent melancholy.
They stayed that way, backs crouched against the wall, for a long time.