Down here, the tunnels hold sound differently. Sometimes it’s faint, like an echo of a thought Sohan hasn’t had yet. Sometimes, the air swells with it, lets it drift instead of fall, and it wraps around him like an embrace.
There’s a battered old keyboard tucked between the coolant ducts and the rusted terminal switchboard. Nobody talks about it, but it’s been there longer than most of the relay. It’s probably older than Rayne.
Kairo sneaks to it sometimes, always late, always when he thinks no one’s watching.
But Soahn always knows he's there.
Kairo never talks about his past before E.V.E.N. Soahn doesn’t need him to; it’s all there in every stroke of the keys. Not a riot of synth. No chaotic glitch cascade.
Just piano. Trained, once. Now raw, like he’s forgotten some of the technicality. That almost makes it better. More real.
Soahn hovers near the door, just out of sight, listening. Kairo’s seated with his back to him, slouched forward, fingers working across the janky keyboard. It’s modded now—badly. A cracked circuit board juts out near the pedal, and one speaker flickers every time the low notes roll.
But it sings anyway.
And tonight, it hurts. Not sharp and sudden, but an ache that settles in Soahn’s chest and folds him inward, like gravity got heavier.
The melody is soft and sad and true. It echoes through every part of him that feels too much. He wants to look away. Wants to run. But Kairo is there, playing like he’s forgotten how to breathe without the keys under his hands.
So Soahn stays, no matter how painful it is to hear.
Sound.
Stillness.
Deep ache.
Soahn doesn’t realise he’s holding his breath until the song falters. Not ends—but wavers out of existence.
Kairo gently lifts his hands from the scuffed plastic. The graffitti-choked speaker, the sticker someone’s slapped on it that says PLAY ME BITCH like a dare. His shoulders sag slightly beneath his oversized jacket.
Exactly what Kairo just unlocked in himself, Soahn isn’t sure.
But the sound stays with him after that night.
Always.