"They gotta be here somewhere."
Clem and Louis had been in the music room since noon, rummaging through boxes and shelves, searching for a stack of Louis's music sheets. It had been a week since they'd freed themselves from the clutches of Delta, and Louis was adamant in teaching AJ to play piano. The only problem was actually finding the papers.
Turned out, the library had a lot more books than they'd anticipated, and Louis only remembered having stashed them somewhere inside one of them. He claimed it was to protect them before Aasim used them as kindling for the fire.
"Is there a possibility you hid them somewhere else?" Clem asked as she started searching yet another row of dusty old books. These all had names pertaining to the natural sciences, most of whom Clem didn't really understand.
Their process was hindered by the fact that Aasim had forbidden them from dumping all the books onto the floor and going from there. Apparently, he wanted to preserve some knowledge from the previous world, and a few music sheets were not worth jeopardizing that vision.
"Nope, I spent most of my time here, remember?" he said, discarding another empty box with a groan. "I don't know how I never noticed how many books Aasim has here."
"If he cares about them so much," Clem said, turning back to him. "Why are most of them dusty?"
"Beats me," he replied, shrugging. After a few minutes of silent search, he snapped his fingers. "That's it!" he exclaimed.
"What?"
"I didn't stash them that long ago, so whichever book has the least amount of dust around it has to be the one, right?"
"That's… actually pretty smart," she complimented, offering him a reassuring smile. "There's a couple of those by that wall." She pointed at the other side of the room.
Louis walked over there and saw a different dust pattern on the shelves by the books. A number of them had the same pattern, their covers faded away after years of disrepair. Carefully, so as not to piss off Aasim, he removed ten of them from the shelves and began sifting through their pages. One of them was a small, thin book with the cover of a young boy.
"Hey Clem," he called out, opening the book and raising his eyebrow at the first chapter. "You ever heard of Harry Potter?"
"Not really," she said, frowning. "Who's that?"
"No one," he said, shaking his head and putting the old book back. When he pulled another out of the shelf, a few pieces of paper slipped through from between the pages, falling onto the floor. He bent down to pick them up and beamed when he saw what they were.
"Found them!" he exclaimed, turning to Clem.
"That's great," Clem said. He showed them to her and she sifted through all of them, staring at the titles of the songs he had prepared to teach AJ. Looking up, they stared into each other's eyes, a smile etched on both their faces. She felt a pull at her navel, a longing to take a step forward. Her right foot lifted itself off the ground, bringing them closer together…
"You found the paper things?" they heard AJ call from the door, making them jump.
"Jeez, little man," he said, dramatically clutching his chest. "You almost gave me a heart attack."
"How long were you waiting over there?" Clem asked, scratching the back of her neck.
"Just a few minutes," he said, shrugging. "Can you teach me now?"
"I sure can," Louis quipped, cheerily waving the sheets around. He took a seat at the piano stool and beckoned AJ to do the same. "You can watch us from there, Clem." He pointed at one of the couches.
As Clem obliged, AJ walked slowly toward the piano, eyeing it curiously. He inspected the woodwork and the keys, some of which were turning yellow after years of decay. The lid of the tail was open, exposing a large number of strings attached to the back of the keyboard, small hammers hitting them as Louis pressed random keys.
The pair started their lesson, going over the bases of the piano and its different keys. Clem looked on with fondness in her eyes, enjoying the sweet melodies her boyfriend performed with AJ. To her chagrin, he was starting AJ's first lesson with 'Oh My Darling', so every time Louis sang her name, the small boy would turn around and grin at his mother figure.
After about half an hour of playing, AJ's small fingers could play the C chord quite well. Placing his fingers over the C key, the E key, and the G key, he pushed them down and played his first real chord. He stopped pressing shortly after, claiming it hurt his hand, and Louis chuckled.
"Yeah, at first it hurts to hold it in that position," he assured him, showing him the way his fingers curled in odd angles as he played more complicated chords. "But you get used to it."
"Okay!" AJ quipped, frowning when he attempted the chord again and got a rough sound from the piano in response. "How long did it take you to become good?"
"About a year or so," Louis said, squinting as he did the math. "After that, I had our entire time in the apocalypse to hone my skills as a performer."
"Hone?"
"It means 'improve'," Clem called from the couch, nodding at AJ.
AJ smiled at her and looked back at Louis, asking for another song. The freckled boy obliged and took one of the music sheets, placing it on a small wooden lid. AJ examined the paper, confused as his eyes darted from one odd shape to the other. It was mostly filled with five straight lines parallel to each other, some of which had small black or white dots drawn over them in different patterns.
Louis turned the page toward the afternoon sun for more visibility and pointed at the squiggly shape that was drawn at the beginning of every five-line row.
"This here's a G clef," he said, tracing the shape with his fingers. He started pointing at the different lines. "It shows that this line is the G note, and this is the A note, and this is the B note, and so on."
"Like the keys on the piano, right?" AJ asked, staring down at the ones he'd mentioned and pressing them lightly.
"That's right!" exclaimed Louis. "You're a natural."
Another half hour was spent on music theory, trying to show AJ how the chords on the sheet music worked, with not much headway. As AJ got increasingly more frustrated as his inability to grasp all the concepts Louis was putting forth, the freckled boy placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"Don't worry yourself too much about that," he said, nodding. "I couldn't get it my first time either. You got any other questions?"
AJ thought about it, scratching his chin. Louis chuckled when he realized that's what he did when he was thinking hard about a question. AJ's eyes darted upwards above the keys and a light switched inside him.
"Louis?" he said quietly, raising his hand and pointing at a spot on woodwork. "What's that mean?"
Louis followed the boy's finger and almost choked on his own spit, realizing it was the carving he and Clem had made barely a week ago. A heart with the letters 'C+L' inside it, symbolizing their relationship. He looked back at Clem for help, but she shrugged helplessly too.
"Why do you ask?"
"Well, I know that's a heart," AJ reasoned, tilting his head as he examined the carving. "But what do those letters mean?"
"That's…" Louis began, pursing his lips. "Those stand for Louis and Clementine."
"Oh," breathed AJ, looking back at Clem. The girl stood up and approached them, placing a hand on Louis's shoulder. She thought of the best way to lay it down for her boy.
"AJ, there's something I have to tell you," she said.
"Okay."
"Louis and I are… a couple," she said. "We got together before Lilly and Abel came here last week."
"And that heart represents our relationship," Louis added cheerfully, placing his own hand over Clementine's.
AJ looked down for a moment, weighing their words carefully.
"Oh, love," he whispered, pursing his lips. "So you guys love each other?"
Both Clem and Louis did a double take, sharing a look. Could they call this love yet? Clem knew she cared about him, and that pretzel date last week had been quite nice. But could she claim she loved him? Could Louis say his crush had evolved into something so much bigger?
Yes, they could. Similar smiles took shape in their faces as they made up their minds, nodding at each other.
"Yes, we uh… love each other," Clem said. It still felt weird saying it, like a foreign concept they'd never heard of. She had seen other people in love before. Alvin and Rebecca, Omid and Christa. But never in a thousand years would she have dreamt she'd be in that same situation.
"That's nice," AJ decided, smiling. "I – I love you guys too," he added cheekily, looking up at them.
"And we love you, kiddo," Louis said, ruffling the boy's hair. "So, you're okay with this?" he asked.
AJ looked at Clem with a fond smile, and then at Louis with slanted eyes. With a small smirk, he shrugged. "Yeah, I'm okay."
Clem leaned in and placed a kiss on AJ's forehead, standing up. "I'll go help Aasim with skinning those rabbits for dinner. You guys probably have another hour for the rest of the lesson."
"Will do, Queen Clem," Louis teased, earning a slap on the shoulder from the girl in question, followed by a kiss. AJ giggled at the sight, covering his mouth with his hands.
"Isn't that what you guys were doing that night at the boat?"
"Um, yeah," Clem replied awkwardly, looking down. To avoid more questions, she took her leave and made her way to the courtyard, where Aasim was waiting. The two boys stayed for another hour, perfecting two more chords before they were interrupted by the dinner bell.
Of course, they were back in the music room in no time. Louis had longed to have a student in the arts of music for a long time, and he wasn't going to waste any time when he finally had one. They stayed up until well after the sun had set, the pale, bright moonlight bathing the music room in an eerie silver hue. When he had to stifle a yawn for the third time, Louis put an end to their lesson.
"We'll continue our classes tomorrow," he said, standing up and stretching. "Great job, kiddo."
"Louis, can I stay here a little longer?" AJ said, looking back at the woodwork on the piano.
"I promise I won't stay up too late."
Louis groaned but sighed, too tired to argue. "Alright, but don't tell Clem. She'll skin me alive if she finds out."
"I won't," AJ snickered, placing his fingers over the keyboard. Louis bid the boy goodnight and made his way to his room, where he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. His dreams were filled with the sound of music and Clementine's face swimming in front of his mind's eye. She called it love. She loves me! was all he could think.
The following morning, Louis was up and about rather early. He always loved to tickle the ivories once before everyone woke up; a sort of ritual to start his days. He walked into the music room, the stillness of the atmosphere a pleasant sight. The rays of sunlight that seeped through the high window exposed the dust particles floating around the room, creating constellations in midair.
He sat on the piano stool, cracking his fingers to begin the song. Before he could start, though, a change to his beloved piano caught his attention. He stared at the heart he and Clem had carved and noticed something above it. A sloppily carved word was written over it, some resin still sticking to the woodwork.
Love.
The corners of his lips curled upwards when he spotted the second change to the carving. AJ's name had been added next to the heart. His fingers traced the shape of the letters, unable to keep the smile off his face. It looks quite good now, he decided with a nod.
As he began playing a random song, he couldn't keep his eyes off the new and improved carving.
"We love you too, AJ," he whispered.