The fight starts small.

Most fights do.

It’s late afternoon, the studio drenched in gold light that slips between the blinds. I’m bent over a sketch of the riverbank near campus, trying to catch the way the water glints against the stones. My hand shakes when I try to sharpen the details, and the result looks smudged, almost melted.

“Damn it,” I mutter, erasing hard enough to tear the paper.

Shion looks up from the corner, where he’s been jotting something in his notebook. “Too rough?”

“Too wrong.” I toss the pencil down. It rolls across the desk, mocking me. “It doesn’t look like anything.”

He leans forward, scanning the drawing. “It looks like light moving across water.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not.” His tone is calm, but I hear something in it—careful, deliberate. Like he’s trying not to step on broken glass.

That tone makes me snap. “You don’t get it, Shion. You don’t see what I see—or what I can’t see.”

The words drop like stones between us.

For the first time since I’ve known him, his smile falters. He sets his notebook aside, straightening in his seat. “Then tell me,” he says softly.

I freeze. “What?”

“Tell me what you can’t see. Tell me what’s slipping away.” His eyes hold mine, steady and unflinching. “I want to know.”

“No, you don’t.” My voice cracks sharper than I intend. “Nobody does. They say they do, but all they want is to pity me, to make themselves feel better by pretending to understand.”

“Do I look like I pity you?”

The question slices through me. I search his face, waiting for that shadow of sympathy I’ve seen in everyone else—teachers, classmates, even my parents when they think I’m not looking. But it isn’t there. Shion’s gaze is clear, unwavering.

I look away first. My throat feels tight, but the words tumble out anyway, raw and jagged. “It’s worse now. My right eye is almost gone. The left… it’s fading faster than they said it would. Some days, the world feels like it’s covered in fog, and I keep thinking—what if tomorrow I wake up and it’s gone completely?”

The silence after is unbearable. I regret saying it, regret letting him see how fractured I am.

Then Shion moves. Not closer, not away—just enough to rest his elbows on his knees, leaning forward like he’s grounding himself in my storm. “Kaoru,” he says, low and steady, “describe it to me.”

I blink. “What?”

“Describe what you still see. Right now.” His voice carries no demand, only intent. “If it’s slipping, then let me hold it with you. Put it into words—I’ll find it in sound.”

My chest stutters. The idea is absurd. Impossible. But his eyes don’t waver. He means it.

I swallow hard, my pulse hammering in my ears. “The light,” I start, my voice rough. “It… it’s softer now. Not sharp like it used to be. Everything has this blur at the edges, like watercolor bleeding on wet paper.”

Shion nods slowly, his expression thoughtful, as if each word is a note he’s catching mid-air.

“And colors—they’re dimmer. But sometimes, when the sun hits just right, they flare too bright, like my eyes can’t filter it anymore. It burns, but it’s also… the only time I feel like I can still see clearly.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, humming under his breath, a faint melody curling from his lips. “Blurred edges… sudden flares of brightness… like dissonance and resolution colliding.”

I stare at him, stunned. “You’re turning this into music?”

“I’m turning it into memory.” His eyes open again, meeting mine with quiet fire. “Yours. So even if you can’t hold it, I can.”

Something in me crumbles. My fists clench on my lap, nails digging into my palms. I want to tell him to stop, that he’s making promises he can’t keep. But the truth is—I’ve never wanted anything more.

My voice wavers. “What if I forget what it looked like?”

“Then I’ll remind you.” His answer comes without hesitation. “Through sound. Through me.”

The weight of those words knocks the breath out of me. My vision blurs, but this time it isn’t from my failing eyes—it’s from the tears I refuse to let fall.

I turn away, pressing a hand over my face. “You’re impossible.”

Shion chuckles softly, not unkindly. “Takes one to know one.”

The tension breaks, just slightly. Enough for air to return to my lungs.

When I lower my hand, he’s watching me with that same steady gaze—not pity, not fear. Just… presence.

For the first time, I don’t feel like I’m fighting the silence alone.

---

Later, when he finally leaves, the studio feels too quiet again. But his melody lingers, weaving through the air, shaping itself around my sketch of the riverbank.

I pick up the pencil and start again. This time, the lines come softer, freer—like sound translated into shape.

And for the first time in months, I don’t dread what I can’t see.

I think of his words: Then I’ll remind you.

Maybe that’s enough.

Maybe.