A breeze swept past the street corner, stirring up a few dead leaves and carrying with it the whispers of old memories.
Those sounds, worn by time yet never quite faded, wove together into a sigh of disappointment upon the wind.
It felt familiar.
The same situation as back then.
Phrolova sat alone in a canvas chair at an open-air café, her fingertips tracing the rim of her cup without conscious thought. She gazed out at the crowds streaming back and forth along the street, yet her eyes reflected no vivid color at all.
Just like that twilight from a thousand years ago, when she had stubbornly clutched that concert ticket, waiting in the deepening dusk for a figure that would never appear, until hope, like the setting sun, slowly sank beneath the horizon.
Even as the years flowed by, as the old opera house had crumbled into ruins, as the familiar streets had changed their names, as even the starlight of that night had long since died out in the river of time
She still remembered. And still could not let go.
She remembered his smile. She remembered the promise he had never kept. She remembered every detail that should have been forgotten.
It was only him, he had forgotten.
That person had forgotten everything. Forgotten the promise he should have kept with her.
No matter. Even if the past was past…
The him of now still had to give her an answer.
"Phrolova."
A soft call pulled the girl back from the shadows of bygone days and into the present.
Those old phantoms, having overlapped with reality for a moment, gradually receded. All that remained before her eyes was the young man standing beneath the warm amber lamplight.
Phrolova lifted her gaze slightly and looked at the young man before her. "It seems you're not late."
She paused briefly, her eyes even widening just a fraction, as though mildly astonished by the fact. "How rare."
"What are you talking about?" Ray was clearly baffled by her inexplicable remark. "When have I ever been late for something I promised?"
"That's not necessarily true." Phrolova rose slowly and began walking toward the concert hall, her voice scattering into the deepening night. "Come. The performance is about to begin."
To this, Ray could only shrug helplessly before quickly striding after her. "I'm coming."
...
...
As for concerts, Ray didn't actually have much interest in them per se.
Of course, that wasn't to say he had no interest at all.
If time permitted, and there were absolutely no pressing matters at hand, he was perfectly willing to surrender himself to a night like this, letting his thoughts drift and sway along with the notes.
Like now, for instance.
The audience seating was sparsely filled, perhaps because the conductor taking the stage tonight was not particularly renowned.
Ray never judged by fame alone. What mattered far more to him was whether the person wielding the baton could deliver a performance that truly moved him.
Phrolova sat beside him, her gaze fixed unwaveringly on the stage that had yet to open, as though trying to see straight through the deep crimson velvet curtain.
She didn't speak a single word.
Ray had long since grown accustomed to this side of her.
Besides, in moments like this, silence itself was the most solemn tribute one could offer to art.
And so, the performance soon began.
Ray's knowledge of music was hardly profound, yet perhaps because of his unusual sensitivity to frequencies, he was able to analyze the music more precisely than others, to perceive not just what floated on the surface, but what the composer truly sought to express.
Even as the current melody surged and swelled with the grandeur of a tempest, he could clearly detect that single thread of sorrow woven through it from beginning to end. This was no fanfare of celebration. This was, in the most resplendent way imaginable…
A requiem?
"What do you think?"
At the very moment the movement reached its climax, Phrolova, usually so taciturn, broke the silence.
Ray looked slightly taken aback, then answered earnestly. "It's very unique. It's as if… all the suppressed emotions are erupting at once, hidden within the most glorious moments of the melody."
"Is that so?" The corner of Phrolova's lips curved upward, but her tone sounded almost like a sigh. "You really can hear it, after all."
She spoke softly, her gaze slowly sweeping across their surroundings, the enthusiastically applauding audience, the smiling faces brimming with appreciation.
A faint, almost imperceptible arc tugged at the corner of her mouth. It looked like self-mockery, or perhaps pity.
"Look. No one here cares about what this piece is truly trying to say."
"Yes, as an audience, they offer their most fervent applause. They give their praise to the musician, and show their respect for the performer."
"Their actions are beyond reproach. But to a true musician… what she yearns for, far more than this applause…"
"…is a kindred spirit."
"Someone who, without needing any explanation or words, can touch the deepest wounds of her heart, simply through the melody of a single piece."
The girl's voice was very soft, lingering by Ray's ear.
"Have you ever witnessed… destruction?"
"I mean, true destruction."
Phrolova asked the question abruptly, but then quickly shook her head, as if mocking her own foolishness.
"What am I saying? Of course you have."
"You've simply forgotten."
"Creation demands an endless night, yet destruction requires but a single moment. No sighs, no wails, no earth-rending tacet discord… The world simply draws its final curtain in silence."
"Not with a bang, but a whimper."
The final syllable dissipated into the air like the last wisp of smoke after a candle is snuffed out.
And then, in the span of a heartbeat, the world shattered into fragments.
No not shattered.
Rather
A blazing meteor, wreathed in the will of annihilation, tore through the ceiling of the concert hall without the slightest warning.
The stained glass became a rain of crystalline shards. The roar of the piano was crushed into silence. That colossal mass plummeted straight toward the audience below.
There had been no omen whatsoever.
Ray's pupils constricted in an instant. Instinct screamed at him to activate his resonance ability, yet he suddenly found his body utterly unresponsive.
And it wasn't just him. The hurtling meteor, the flying debris, the very space itself, all of it had been pressed into a state of suspension.
The surrounding audience was frozen mid-applause, smiles rigid on their faces, utterly oblivious to the impending apocalypse.
What's going on?
That meteor—what is it?
No, it's not real. It's a phantom, constructed from pure frequency…
Not just the meteor, even these people are fabrications!
Damn it. An illusion? Since when?
Gritting his teeth with tremendous effort, Ray could only manage the faintest twitch of his fingers despite straining with everything he had.
Yet the girl who had been sitting quietly all this while now rose to her feet at her leisure.
Her crimson figure brushed past the frozen dust. She walked through the stilled time as though nothing were amiss, finally coming to a stop before him.
Could it be…
Phrolova?!
"What… are you trying to do?" Ray's voice was practically forced through clenched teeth. "Is this some kind of sick joke, or—"
"Shh."
A cool fingertip gently pressed against his lips.
Phrolova leaned in close. Her wine-red irises reflected his shocked and furious face, and deep within them swirled a sorrow and longing he had never seen before.
"I only wanted—"
"For you to remember."
"Even if only for a fleeting moment."
The instant her words faded, time resumed its flow.
The meteor came crashing down with apocalyptic fury, descending together with the girl's soft, tender kiss.
All sound, all color, all unfinished accusations, everything melted away within that kiss.
In silent, soundless stillness, the world marched toward its end.