People say the first memory that surfaces when you think of someone is the truest reflection of how you feel about them.

So why the first thing that comes to my mind was the sound of a melody that misses its half-second beat?

*****

“What is that? It sounds like you missed a note,” she said.

The piano sang softly in the half-lit room, a tune that wandered off from its own rhythm.

A young man sat before the keys, his golden hair slightly disheveled, as though the night had leaned too close. Beside him stood a woman, her hair a fall of black silk down her back, her eyes tracing the movement of his slender fingers with an air of wonder, almost like admiration.

The air smelled faintly of dust and old wood. The season itself seemed uncertain, a time when cold transitioned into warmth.

“What do you think?” he asked, still looking at the keys, a small smirk tugging at his mouth.

“It’s out of tune,” she murmured, “and yet… it feels right. Almost… beautiful.”

He let out a low chuckle, the sound rich and teasing. Her cheeks warmed; she turned her gaze away, suddenly aware of how foolish she must have sounded.

“You’d be in prison for saying that aloud,” he said, laughter softening his words, though something sharper hid beneath. Then, after a pause, his tone grew gentler. “But I understand what you mean.”

She looked up. “What is it called?”

“Jazz,” he replied. “The sound of dissonance and chaos. Depending on who you ask, the commoners might call it the sound of freedom… or defiance.”

“Do you play it often, Jo?” The question escaped before she could weigh it.

“Sometimes,” he said, finally meeting her hazel eyes. “But only in private. This is one lesson you’ll need, knowing what not to play if you want to survive here.”

There was a quiet between them, the kind that hums like a pause between two notes.

“Would you play it for me next time?” she asked, her voice small but steady.

Her fingers twisted in her lap, a gesture of someone learning how to get what she wanted.

For a moment, his eyes widened, then the laughter returned, brief and bright as a flame.

“You’re a strange woman, Celeste,” he said, shaking his head.

She smiled faintly, though her heart skipped again, off-beat, an imperfection that seemed right.

Maybe Johannes found her strangeness endearing, or maybe he saw in her what she was: a blank canvas waiting to be drawn by chaos.

For she was not Reina, the young princess of Seirya. She was Celeste, a ghost born of war, living in a fragile, beautiful seclusion; unaware that she herself was the kingdom’s missing card in a game spun from chaos, greed, and damnation.

“Your Majesty?”

Reina’s eyes flicked open. A pair of emerald eyes, laced with quiet worry, hovered before her.

The golden pen in Sena’s hand had stilled; ink trails curved across the page in uneven rhythm.

The piano was gone.

The husky laugh of a man was gone.

Only the faint tremor of memory remained, the echo of a name no one called her anymore, and the silent gaze of a man who felt almost familiar, yet irrevocably different.

When the meeting with Sena ended, she excused herself with her usual warmth.

Reina smiled, thanked her, and watched as the young woman disappeared into the bright corridor, already laughing with someone new.

Only then did Reina allow her composure to slip. She moved her glance to the corner of the room to find the shadow. And there he was—the man who once painted her dreams in darker tones.

Unmoving. Unreadable.

Sitting with a cup of black coffee and a book on the marble table. The morning light cast a strong shadow on his golden hair.

Reina’s fingers brushed the rim of her teacup. For a moment, she hesitated, torn between the instinct of royalty urging her to leave quietly, and another, older instinct urging her to reach out.

At last, she exhaled and lifted her hand to a passing waiter.

“The gentleman in the corner… would you kindly tell him Her Majesty wishes to speak with him?”

The waiter blinked, startled, but bowed and obeyed.

Across the room, Johannes looked up when the message was delivered.

For a second, his expression didn’t change, only the faintest flicker of amusement passed through his eyes, quickly hidden beneath composure.

Perhaps he thought he had already won the game. But the truth was, neither of them remembered which game they were still playing. He rose, fixed his cufflink, left his cup half-finished, and crossed the room toward her table.

*****

The sound of his steady steps was almost inaudible, yet Reina heard them, each one like the muted beat of a drum, the rhythm that lingered in her memory—remnants of life hidden in her dream.

He stopped before her and inclined his head.

“Your Majesty.”

A gesture slow and mocking, his eyes glinted under the morning sun.

“Please,” she said quietly, gesturing to the empty chair across from her, “sit.”

He did. For a moment, neither spoke. Even the café seemed to hold its breath, the clock stopped ticking, a pause between two notes. Until a nervous waitress approached,

“Would you like anything, sir?”

Johannes looked to Reina before answering. For the briefest instant, she caught the ghost of a grin, that same reckless spark she despised.

“Black coffee,” he said. “No sugar.” his second cup of the day.

Silence fell again, time hold its reins upon the two human being, allowing them a breath between the erratic rhythms that had unraveled them. Reina lowered her gaze to her porcelain cup, her slender fingers curled around the handle. Yet the man before him never shifted his attention from the young queen.

How had silence become both a reliever and torturer?

Johannes folded his hands on the table, studying her face, not as a queen, but the young woman from his past. His gaze fell on her dark hair, tightly secured in an updo, not a single strand out of place. Yet her eyes remained the color of defiance, the same eyes that haunted his dreams, moments that tasted like freedom during his own captivity.

Finally, the coffee arrived and time moved forward. Johannes finally broke the silence,

“You started your day early,” he said. “You used to complain about mornings.”

Reina exhaled softly, a smile almost forming. “Queens don’t have the luxury to complain.”

“That sounds lonely,” he said simply.

The word lonely struck something deep in her. Her fingers tightened around her cup, she decided to cross the threshold,

“We both chose our paths, didn’t we?”

“Chose,” he echoed quietly, as if testing the sound.

“You chose to wear a crown. I chose to follow my father into ruin. And yet here we are sitting in a café, pretending to be civilized.” his tone was a mix of mockery and pain.

She looked at him then, truly looked at the faint lines beneath his eyes, the wear and depth in the blue ocean. He carried the weight of a man who had seen too much and found too little worth keeping.

Her chest stirred, softened. Her tone gentle and reached out to the soul of the man before her,

“Why did you come here, Johannes?”

The ocean met her gaze without flinching. “To find an answer.”

A simple quiet truth.

The gramophone shifted again, from waltz to jazz, a low lingering trumpet searching for resolution but never finding one. Something in her chest echoed the same dissonance.

Once, in another room, another time, a man had become that embodiment of warmth and chaos, Reina wondered who would she found now beneath that deep blue ocean?

But for Johannes, it was the quiver of her eyes, that single unpredicted moment in her hesitation, a crack of emotion that stirred something within him.

In his world built on tactics, the worst enemy was unpredictability, those who refused to move by order or rule. In battle, such unpredictability could cost a life.

But Johannes had already lost his.
So now, there was nothing left to lose.

He studied the woman across from him in silence, his coffee untouched opposite of an empty porcelain cup, stain of dark liquid inside.

Morning light poured through the window, cutting across her pale, porcelain skin, too strong on her face, as if the sun itself is a merciless judge.

Her black hair, bound with a jade pin, looked too heavy for such a delicate frame. Faint lines gathered beneath her eyes, proofs of sleeplessness and duty the young queen endured.

He scoffed quietly and exhaled long. His hand fidgeted, restless, until it found the handle of his cup.

The first sip was bitter in his mouth, almost merciless. The taste spread through him, consuming him, like a memory he didn’t want, sharp and metallic, heavy with the ghost of blood and spring rain.

The gramophone clicked again. The silence between songs hummed.

And then, the café dissolved into another night.

The acrid scent of ash mixed with blood and a faint of jasmine.

Murmurs of soldiers loud in his mind. The soft, desperate cry of the dying.

The night he found his dissonance.

*****

Author’s note:

Thank you for reading this chapter. Please help by voting the chapter or leaving comments and review. It means a lot to hear your feedbacks 🙂

Johannes and Celeste’s piano scene happened approximately 5 years ago. They met again in Tuvana under different status and circumstances.