WARNING: This story contains graphic depictions and references to suicide. Please read at your own discretion.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: All character names are the ones Hidekaz Himaruya has either officially assigned or suggested for each character. The excerpt at the beginning is from the poem "Я вас любил" ("I Loved You") by Alexander Pushkin.

This is the prelude; no major warnings apply just yet. But expect a story about ghosts, reincarnation, and mental breakdowns :)

Enjoy!

Я вас любил: любовь еще, быть может,

В душе моей угасла не совсем

I loved you; and perhaps that love has yet

To be extinguished completely from within my soul

In the city that never slept, Yao found himself appropriately restless at the stroke of midnight. Red and gold swam in his head, fading wisps of a dream that had felt more like memory than imagination. He couldn't remember what it had been about, only that it had set his heart into a beating frenzy, and that he'd rather stare up at the ceiling than close his eyes and dream it again.

Wiping the sweat off his brow, he blindly reached for the wrinkled pile of clothes by his bed. The canary was quiet, likely asleep, so he tiptoed his way through the cramped house when he was dressed, sliding a bag up onto his shoulder and creeping out through the back door. He would take the old shortcut, as always.

The distant roar of a motorbike ripped through the air. A few streets away, music faintly throbbed. The faraway high-rise towers still dazzled with lights like stars, though floor by floor they were beginning to disappear. He walked towards them, through an alleyway with hanging laundry for a sky and onto the open streets of the former French Concession, crosscutting through an old park where he and Kiku had carved out a well-worn path in the grass as children.

It was here that he felt him strongest, in the perfect stillness of a quiet street that resembled how it had looked the night before, and the many nights before that. There wasn't a soul around to dare to taint it, save for Yao who teased the shadows by stepping only where the streetlights reached, and hummed the songs that had once been sung by two. The street echoed it back to him, and with a shiver he quickened his steps, slowing them only when he reached cracked stone steps. He glanced up to see what new damage had been done today.

Scaffolding. What used to be a grand, albeit crumbled, theatre, was now some millionaire's pet project, and though at least a dozen or so attempts had been made in the last half-century to fix it, none had ever succeeded. The work was too dangerous. The building had a sly way of dropping beams and stage lights on workers, as if by selection offering its parts without compromising its structural integrity. No one was sure how it even stood upright by this point, though Yao had enough faith in it to enter night after night. He was its honoured guest since the age of seven, and in all fifteen years not once had he gotten hurt by it.

He carefully stepped through the bars holding up the new scaffolding, gently pushing open the main door. It gave way with a metallic creak, a little hello, a greeting. He slipped in and turned on his flashlight, tutting with dismay as the light flickered and died. He'd forgotten to bring spare batteries.

Like raindrops, piano keys trickled in the dark. Yao tensed.

Another sound, a chord, a deliberate climbing of its notes until they reached their peak.

"Who's there?" Yao called out.

A brushing, quiet breath, maybe laughter. "Why don't you come up here and see?"

The words sounded strange, in that low, rolling voice. Yao couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was something off, something about that voice that was making his heart beat a little faster. He felt around in the dark for the familiarity of the theatre seats to guide him back out, when the stage lights buzzed and flickered on, spitting sparks into the dusty air. There was a man seated at the piano onstage, wrapped in a dark coat and with hands so pale they made the piano keys look off-white.

"Come up here."

"What are you doing in here?" Yao asked, ignoring the quickening of his pulse as he walked across the flattened, mucky carpet. "No one is allowed here. People get hurt."

Yao climbed up onto the stage, annoyed that the man – this intruder – didn't appear to be listening. When he was within an arm's reach, the man's moon-pale face turned to him – a hard gaze staring into Yao's own. Black pupils followed him when Yao took an apprehensive step back.

"Do you play?" the man asked, his lips moving but the rest of his face still as stone. Yao nodded. The man tilted his head in the direction of a stool. "Follow after me."

Yao glanced at the man's hands, poised and ready on the piano. He took a seat on the stool and unzipped his bag, heart beating hard in his chest as he pulled his violin out. He never improvised for strangers, only on empty stages and in intimate shadows. For the past year or so, it had only been the same repertoire of cold technical pieces, ones he gave little warmth or heart to. Yet, when this man asked, he felt compelled to play for him the same way he once played for Kiku.

The first few notes struck hard – deep, rumbling waves that set Yao's hairs on end, climbing to a quick crescendo before free-falling. Then it was quiet, and out of the silence softer, sweeter notes rose out, and Yao's own hands longed to move in tandem. He drew the bow stick, following a melody he'd never heard before, though his fingers told him otherwise. He closed his eyes for a moment – for perhaps his only peaceful moment of rest in this night – and felt that he was perhaps dreaming, that he had returned somewhere he had no recollection of.

Feeling conscious of being watched, he opened his eyes, blinking to the sight of the dazzling, broken stage, and the ghostly man across from him. A mirthful look glided his way, a faint smile dancing on that man's lips.

"Moya chyornaya liliya… Close your eyes again for me."

Yao didn't quite want to. There was something catching in that look, something beautifully broken about it, though he shut his eyes once more to find that euphoric feeling again. He carried on, letting his hands do the work, until he realised that all he could hear was the haunting, lonely song of his violin. He opened his eyes.

The man was gone – and with him, he had taken the melody. Though Yao attempted to retrieve it, his hands could no longer play it, and within a few moments, he could no longer even remember what it had sounded like. One by one, like the towers of Shanghai at the stroke of midnight, the stage lights fizzled out and died.

It wasn't until dawn broke over the horizon, until Yao tiredly crept out the theatre doors, that he realised what had sounded odd about the way the man spoke. He had been speaking in Russian. A language Yao knew none of. Yet, even as the sky shirked off its night veil, Yao could still remember what that man had called him, what that name meant. Chyornaya liliya, he had called him – his black lily.