---

Earlier that morning;

Tan’s phone buzzed, dragging him from uneasy sleep. He squinted at the screen.

Mom.

He frowned. His mother rarely called him directly. That was usually Tarn’s job. For her to bypass that habit meant something was wrong.

He picked up. “What is it, mae?”

Her voice was frayed. ["It’s Uncle Kit."]

Tan’s stomach dropped. “What happened?”

["He had an accident on his way home."] Her voice cracked. ["He’s in critical condition. The doctors are trying their best, but… it doesn’t look good."]

"I’ll be home soon," Tan said, already throwing back the blanket.

Uncle Kit was his mother’s younger brother. His wife had passed away years ago due to a medical error, and he’d never remarried. Without children of his own, he had treated Tan and Tarn as his own. He was the only one in the family who encouraged Tan’s passion for music — had even gifted him his first guitar.

Please let him be alright was the only thought pounding through his mind as he rushed out of his condo.

---

By the time he reached the hospital, it was too late. Tarn had already arrived. His parents stood grim-faced, saying little. Tarn handed him a small box.

“He wanted you to have this,” she said softly. “Said it was an early gift for your first concert.”

Tan took it wordlessly, tucking it into his pocket with care he didn’t yet understand.

---

Uncle Kit’s cremation was set for two days later. Tan messaged Kla and Yu, letting them know he wouldn’t make it to class or practice.

The house was full of people — some relatives, others strangers. Yet they all shared one thing: whispers.

“He’s ungrateful.”

“What good would studying music do?”

“What kind of job is that?”

“He’ll regret it one day — if he hasn’t already.”

Tan’s grip tightened on the armrest of his chair. Every word pricked at him like a splinter. He stood, needing air — or space — or anything that wasn’t them.

He slipped away, wandering through the halls of his childhood home like a stranger. In a quiet corner, he opened the box Uncle Kit had left him.

Inside was a guitar pick, warm brown wood with his name engraved in faint, precise lines.

He swallowed the lump in his throat.

“You’ll need this when you’re ready to play for the world.” Uncle Kit’s voice echoed in his mind — one of their old afternoons, his uncle laughing as he tried to teach him chords. Tan had fumbled through the progression, and his uncle had simply grinned.

“Mistakes mean you’re trying.”

Tan slipped the pick into his pocket, silently promising to use it well.

His feet carried him next to a room he hadn’t entered in years — his father’s study.

The air inside was still, heavy with old books and unopened windows. The kind of place where time had congealed.

As he wandered past dusty shelves, his eyes caught something — just the corner of a wooden box sticking out from beneath a covered portrait.

Drawn by instinct, he tugged it free.

The box was palm-sized and carved in delicate Lanna-style patterns: curling vines and faded lotus blooms worn smooth by age. Tan hesitated, then opened it.

The hinges creaked softly.

Inside, resting on faded red velvet, lay a pendant shaped like a treble clef. Honey-toned wood, worn smooth, but unmistakably hand-carved. A black braided cord curled beneath it, tangled slightly — as if someone had meant to wear it again but never got the chance.

Tan’s breath caught. His fingers hovered, trembling.

The moment he touched it, sound bloomed in his mind — a single note. Haunting, incomplete. It echoed something familiar, like the melody he and Kla had been composing… but older. Wilder. Sadder.

And then everything fell away.

The study blurred.

He stood beneath a frangipani tree, petals fluttering down like soft rain. The setting sun glowed warm against his skin. A figure stood before him, their outline bathed in gold — familiar shoulders, a silhouette he knew. The face was lost to shadow.

In his hand was the pendant.

He placed it gently into the figure’s palm.

“We’ll meet again,” he heard himself say.

His voice was older. Hopeful. But trembling — because deep down, he feared they wouldn’t.

Tan gasped and stumbled back.

The study snapped back into place. His chest heaved. His pulse roared in his ears.

What the hell was that?

It hadn’t felt like a dream. Dreams didn’t leave impressions this deep in the bones. Was it a memory? A vision?

He clutched the pendant. How did it end up here? If he had given it to someone in that vision — then how…?

His footsteps echoed as he backed away. He reached the door — then paused, glancing back.

The cloth that had covered the portrait had slipped to the floor.

It revealed an old painting — two men dressed in white. One rested his hand on the other’s shoulder; their gazes met, full of tenderness and finality. Like they knew the end was near.

Tan stared. His breath hitched.

One of the men looked like him.

The other — like Kla.

---

He said nothing to his parents.

He wanted to. He wanted to storm downstairs, pendant in hand, demand answers. But something stopped him.

Fear.

They already disapproved of his choices. His future in music hung by a thread. If he gave them any reason to think he was unstable — talking about dreams, visions, ghosts of the past — they’d cut the thread for good.

So he said nothing.

But he didn’t go unnoticed.

Later that evening, his mother passed him in the hallway. The pendant peeked from his palm.

She saw it.

Her expression tightened. Just for a second. Then she said nothing and walked on.

Do they know?

That night, Tan couldn’t sleep.

He sat outside, beneath the frangipani tree in the garden — the same flower-scent from his vision perfumed the air. A light breeze stirred the petals across the lawn.

He turned the pendant over in his hands again and again.

He remembered how Uncle Kit once said music was the language that remembered things even people forgot.

Was this melody he and Kla had been building… was it a memory too?

Tan looked up at the stars, his expression unreadable.

He couldn’t rush this. Not yet.

But one thing was certain — he couldn’t ignore it either.

He clutched the pendant tightly.

The river remembers.

So do I.