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“I thought the party was over.”
Momo flinched at the sound of his voice as it broke the silence of the deserted ballroom. She whirls around, the fabric of her champagne-colored dress making a slight swishing noise as she did so. Shinji had walked up the short steps of the stage, hands in his pockets, his tie loose around the collars of his partially-unbuttoned dress shirt. It seems he’d taken off the midnight blue suit jacket he was wearing hours prior. Momo could only watch, equal parts nervous and entranced, as he approached her.
She opted to come back to the events hall after the night’s festivities had ended, when the still air and the emptiness of her room offered her no solace from her loneliness. She’d walked around, glittery high heels in one hand while she ran the other across the now-barren tables and flower vases. They cleaned up fast around here, Momo thought. So fast, it was like nothing ever happened. She even began regretting her decision because the place felt almost as empty as her room did.
Until she laid her eyes on a black grand piano, solitary on the dimly-lit stage, now the only evidence of the night’s grandeur. She felt compelled to walk up to it and so she did, with a caution that seemed silly and unnecessary. This inanimate object was not in any danger of springing to life and questioning her presence, but Momo felt like it would at any minute. It just looked so… alone up there. Like it was beckoning her to keep it company.
Momo greeted the instrument softly, with the same fondness she would an old friend. She laid a hand gently on its dark wooden surface and touched the ivory keys delicately, careful not to accidentally push any of them.
And this is where her captain catches her red-handed. Or perhaps, he’d caught her many moments ago, as she wandered aimlessly through the room like some ghost. He feels like one himself sometimes, with the way he effortlessly sneaks up on her without so much as a stray gust of wind or a soft footstep to give him away.
“I’m sorry, sir”, Momo blurts out, and Shinji just chuckles because he knows her well enough to understand that apologizing for absolutely no reason is her knee-jerk reaction of choice.
“Did you enjoy yourself tonight?”, he asks, striding towards the piano and sitting down on the bench, his hands comfortably finding their way atop the black and white keys.
“I did”, she replies as the first few notes sounded from deep within the instrument’s core. The music takes on a slightly more haunting edge without the thrum of a crowd’s energy. But it’s beautiful nonetheless; it breathes some much-needed life into everything in this room. Momo is quickly transported back to when the night was young, and when she had yet to discover her captain’s hidden gift for playing the piano. Her heart races now in the exact same way that it did then. Perhaps even more, given their current proximity.
“You played wonderfully tonight”, she says sheepishly, and she immediately scolds herself for the severe understatement. Shinji’s performances were downright magical. She couldn’t even focus on her food. She had been able to focus even less whenever he glanced in her direction at various points throughout the night, unsure as she was if she truly was the object of his attention.
Shinji smiles and shakes his head slightly. “Thanks, but I think I was pretty rusty. Definitely made a few mistakes back there.”
Momo rolls her eyes. “You’re lying. And if you aren’t, then rest assured that nobody noticed.”
He laughs, scooting over to his left and nodding for Momo to sit beside him. After controlling the furious blush fighting its way onto her cheeks, she obliges, folding both her hands onto her lap.
“So why’re you here?”, Shinji asks her, abruptly ending the song he’d started. Momo shrugs, frowning at the sudden quiet.
“I could ask you the same, sir.”
“But I asked you first.” He punctuates this with an expectant raise of his eyebrows.
Momo sighs, her fingers absentmindedly fiddling with a few of the piano keys, feeling around the notes until she comes close to mimicking a particular melody in her head. She has no idea what she’s doing; she could only hope for the dissonant chords to make sense eventually.
“My room felt cold”, she says like she’s thinking out loud, eyes glued to the way her fingers moved. It takes a few seconds for her to realize that Shinji had been doing the same, intently. Apparently, her tune had taken some shape.
“Is that Norah Jones you’re playin’?”, he asks, a look of fond recognition on his face.
Momo stops, fingers still poised over the keys. “Norah Jones?”
Shinji straightens, fixing to play again. “She’s one of the greats. And that song’s a classic”, he explains, before proceeding to play said song exactly the way she knows it, the chords singing on Norah’s behalf — a far cry from her basic rendition.
Momo smiles. “So that’s her name. I hear her voice in our office a lot”, she says, eyes closing in a moment of bliss. This is easily her favorite song in Shinji’s rotation – it’s sweet and soothing, like honey in a cup of tea. She doesn’t need to understand the words to know that it’s about a love that’s equally sweet. A love that’s equally soothing.
Inside her chest, Momo’s heartbeat quickens just a bit whenever Shinji’s arm brushes against hers.
“I didn’t think you paid attention”, he remarks out of the blue, and that makes Momo open her eyes to meet his ash-brown ones. His hands seem to have a mind of their own, not once fumbling over the keys without Shinji’s sight to guide them. “To the music, I mean.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”, Momo replies like it’s obvious. The prospect of her coming off as ignorant of his passions makes her cringe internally. Heaven forbid. “I didn’t know what to make of it at first but I’ve grown to quite like it. I just never thought to ask about the songs. Not even this one, and it’s my favorite.”
Shinji replies without missing a beat. “Come away with me.”
Momo stops her rambling fully in its tracks, that blush surely evident on her cheeks now. “What?”
He chuckles again and looks back down at his hands. “It’s the name of this song. I’m glad you like it.”
Momo gathers herself and asks, “Why didn’t you play it tonight?”
Shinji shrugs. “Just didn’t feel right”, he says simply.
“And this does?”
That makes him turn to look at her again, and Momo stops worrying about where her brazenness is coming from when he nods. “You could say that”, he replies, his voice dropping to barely-audible.
"You haven’t told me why you’re here”, she points out, subconsciously shifting in her seat to fully face him.
Shinji looks at her as he keeps playing, as if he’s waiting for either the music or her eyes to give him the right answers. “I was lookin’ for someone.”
“Oh”, Momo reacts, her heart beating like an erratic drum. “And you thought to look in an empty ballroom?”
“Not really the first place I had in mind. But she wasn’t in her room. So I kept looking”, he says as the song slows to a stop. Something in his eyes gives him away. Maybe it’s the same loneliness in hers. The same hopeless longing.
And then, against the silence, his next words sounded like music all the same.
“My room felt cold, too.”
Momo’s eyes widen as the realization sinks in ever further. Then, like a woman possessed, she takes his hand and leads the way for them both. He didn’t even put up a fight.
There wasn’t much left to discuss once they made it inside Momo’s quarters. They hide away from the world for the rest of the night, with their quiet whispers and their careful touches to keep them company. Shinji is not the type to shrink against anybody, but in Momo’s arms, he does; and she realizes that he’s probably never allowed himself to do that before. And in return, he keeps her safe from the demons that haunt her sleep. He tells her how beautiful she is. He gives her a kind of peace she never thought she could have again.
When they wake up, it’s pouring rain outside. And they take that as an excuse to stay inside where it’s warm, just a little while longer.