The first time Shion shows up at my studio, I nearly throw him out.

The room has always been mine—mine and the quiet that pools in it. It isn’t much, just an unused classroom our professor let me claim after I begged hard enough. The walls are bare except for a few uneven swaths of paint samples and pinned sketches. A table is cluttered with tubes of acrylic, jars of brushes soaking in murky water, and stacks of paper that look like they might collapse if someone breathed too hard near them. I like it that way. It feels alive.

It feels like the only space where I can unravel without anyone watching.

So when the door creaks open, and I hear that familiar, maddeningly cheerful voice—

“Smells like turpentine in here.”

—I almost snap my brush in two.

I don’t turn around. My current sketch—half a self-portrait, half something I can’t quite name yet—demands my attention. “You can’t just walk in.”

“Door wasn’t locked.” His footsteps are light, careful, but I can feel his presence filling the small room like sound filling an empty hall. “Besides, I knocked.”

“Knocking means nothing if you don’t wait for an answer.”

“Fair point.” There’s no shame in his tone, just an easy acceptance, as if my irritation is nothing more than background noise. I hate that about him—that calm persistence. He doesn’t fight back, but he doesn’t leave either.

I hear him moving closer, the floorboards groaning softly under his weight. He stops a few feet away, probably staring at the mess on my table. “Do you always work in silence?”

“Silence is good.”

“For you, maybe.”

That makes me glance at him, just briefly. He’s leaning against the edge of a desk, arms crossed loosely, his ever-present grin softened into something more thoughtful. His hair is tied back today, a few strands falling over his forehead. He looks… comfortable, like he belongs here. And that unsettles me more than anything.

“You’re distracting,” I mutter, turning back to my sketch.

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you kick me out?”

I freeze, the charcoal pencil caught mid-line. He’s right—I should. I should tell him to leave, to stop invading this little sanctuary I’ve carved out of a world that keeps taking from me. But the words don’t come. Instead, I keep sketching, letting the silence drag.

He chuckles under his breath, not cruel, just amused. “Thought so.”

I grind the pencil harder against the paper, pretending his voice isn’t seeping into the edges of my concentration.

---

The visits don’t stop.

Every few days, he shows up again—sometimes carrying sheet music tucked under his arm, sometimes humming some half-formed melody as he pokes around the room. The first few times, I snap at him. I tell him I can’t focus with his chatter, that he’s ruining my concentration.

But he never takes the bait. He just shrugs, apologizes lightly, and then finds something else to occupy himself. Once, he sat on the floor by the window and started scribbling notes in a worn notebook. Another time, he borrowed one of my unused canvases and drew stick figures playing violins.

I should hate it. I tell myself I do.

But the truth is—the room doesn’t feel as heavy with him in it.

---

One afternoon, I’m bent over a new piece, trying to capture the way light fractures across glass. My vision blurs at the edges, smudging the lines. I blink hard, frustrated. When I press too firmly, the pencil snaps in my grip.

“Damn it.”

Shion looks up from where he’s perched, tuning a violin I didn’t even realize he’d brought. “Need another?”

I glare at the broken pencil as if it betrayed me. “I’ll get it.”

Before I can move, he stands and rummages through the mess on my desk, somehow finding a spare. He sets it down next to my sketchpad without a word.

I mutter, “You’re too comfortable in my space.”

“Maybe.” He settles back onto the chair, testing a string with a clean, resonant pluck. “Or maybe your space isn’t as hostile as you think.”

I don’t answer. I don’t want to admit that the sound of the violin—gentle, unhurried—steadies my pulse.

---

Days turn into weeks. Our conversations grow without me noticing. At first, they’re shallow: him asking what I’m working on, me grunting vague answers. Then deeper: him telling me about a chord progression that won’t resolve, me ranting about how colors refuse to sit the way I want them to.

He says, “Music is built on tension. Resolutions only matter because dissonance comes first.”

I reply, “Art is the same. Contrast makes the image breathe.”

And then there are the quieter moments—the ones that scare me more. The way he hums under his breath when I erase a line too many times. The way he points out details in my work I didn’t think anyone would notice.

Once, he traces the air above my canvas with his finger and murmurs, “It feels like silence.”

I pause, brush mid-stroke. “Silence?”

“Not emptiness. More like… a silence that listens.”

The words lodge in me like a seed, growing roots I can’t pull out.

One evening, the light outside fades earlier than I expect. My eye strains in the dimness, and I realize I forgot to bring a lamp. I rub at my temple, trying to will the ache away.

“You should stop,” Shion says softly.

“I can still—”

“Kaoru.” His tone sharpens, rare for him. “You’re pushing too hard.”

I go still. My instinct is to argue, to tell him he doesn’t understand. But when I glance up, his expression is steady, unwavering. Not pitying—never pitying—but concerned.

For me.

Something inside me cracks. I set the brush down. “Fine.”

His shoulders ease, and he offers a small smile. “See? Not the end of the world.”

I scowl, but it doesn’t reach my chest the way it used to.

Over time, the silence I once worshipped shifts. It isn’t just mine anymore. It’s layered now—with the scratch of his pencil on staff paper, the low hum of his voice as he tests melodies, the faint tapping of his foot when he thinks too long.

And yet, it’s still silence. Just… shared.

Sometimes I catch myself sketching faster, trying to keep up with the rhythm of his humming. Other times, I stop altogether, watching the way his eyes narrow when a note finally lands right.

It’s infuriating. It’s disarming.

It’s… something I don’t want to name yet.

---

One night, after he leaves, I linger in the studio alone. The room feels too big without him. Too still.

I stare at the canvas I’ve been working on. It’s a sketch of overlapping lines and broken shapes, but now, I notice something new in it—something I didn’t put there consciously. A warmth. A softness creeping into the edges.

I think of his words. A silence that listens.

For the first time in years, the quiet doesn’t feel like a cage.

It feels like company.

And I hate how much I want it back already.