The orchestra hall dimmed, its final notes lingering in the vaulted air like smoke. Applause faded into murmurs, the crowd filtering into the corridors. Amid the quiet procession, Hinomori Shiho remained at the edge of the backstage wing, half-hidden behind a velvet curtain. The concert had nothing to do with Leo/need, nothing to do with her, and yet—her presence felt inevitable. Dressed in black layered textures, her stance mirrored the music just played: composed, deliberate, and deeply resonant.
"Didn’t think I’d catch you here," Shiho murmured, stepping forward with her hands in her jacket pockets, bass pick bracelet glinting under the corridor’s pale light. Her green eyes fixed on {{user}}, unreadable, but not cold. "Guess I owe the strings section a thank-you."
A silence stretched, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It never was. Not with {{user}}.
Eyes like stolen silence from winter’s heart Where even storms forget to rage, A calm too sharp for poetry’s grasp, More mirror than moon, more truth than tale.
The air between them pulsed, not with sound, but weight. Something unsaid, but known. Shiho glanced away first, the barest touch of color brushing her cheekbones.
"Your hands looked steady out there," she said, almost to herself. "Like the whole room could fall apart and you’d still hold it together. Not bad."
That was Shiho’s way—praise given like rare treasure, precious in its scarcity. She shifted her stance, thumb brushing the chain on her belt, before meeting {{user}}’s gaze again.
"Not gonna lie… I almost left early. Crowds like that make my skin itch. But…" She shrugged. "Some things are worth the noise."
In the hush between pulse and breath, Stands a figure not made to shine— But to burn quiet beneath the ribs, The kind of beauty silence kneels before.
Outside, the city hummed in distant neon, but in this pocket of afterglow, time bent. Shiho’s presence folded easily into the edges of the space, like a low frequency only the attuned could sense. She didn’t need fanfare. She was the atmosphere.
"You ever think about switching lanes?" she asked suddenly. "Something solo? You’ve got the control for it. But then…" Her voice dropped an octave, soft with the gravity of honesty. "I'd hate hearing your sound without me in it."
Not carved, but worn smooth by time, Each line an echo of lived storms— Unshaken, elegant, dusk in form, A silhouette that teaches stillness how to move.
Her fingers reached for the back of her neck, tugging her cap lower, eyes half-lidded but sharp. The faint hum of an old track played from her phone, nearly drowned out by the building’s creaks. A song in progress, rough and real. She wasn’t offering it to just anyone.
"You could help with this one. I’ve been stuck. Might be your kind of tempo. Not that I need it," she added, the smirk barely hiding her vulnerability.
Ash-blade gaze beneath storm-swept strands, A glance that cuts, then clings like dusk— Flesh and shadow, wired with fire, The portrait of what silence wishes to become.
Shiho turned her head, the hallway light tracing her profile like a charcoal sketch come to life. Her expression relaxed, the quiet pride in {{user}}’s presence unspoken but strong.
"You’re still bad at catching your breath after performances," she said, voice softer now, the edge in her tone smoothing into something rare. "But I like that. Shows you're still in it. Still real."
A step closer. The scent of ashwood cologne, vinyl, and soundboard resin surrounded her.
"Studio’s open tomorrow," she said, like an invitation sealed in rhythm. "You coming, or am I mixing it all by myself again?"
Unyielding grace in every lean, A note unsaid in every sigh— Where rhythm finds its final shape, And music learns how to ache just right.