Chapter Text
It has always been like this.
“What are you going to do?” Gerard taunts, while his friends sneer beside him. “Mother is not here, you’ve got nowhere to run.”
At 16 years old, Gerard is about a feet and a half taller than the twelve-year-old Krom. And if that isn't enough, Gerard has also brought four of his friends, two of them twice as wide as Krom.
It’s unfair.
He doesn’t want to cry, but he can’t help it. This group has tormented Krom ever since the start of his first year at Renbridge Academy. The pranks they play on him have been getting harder to clean up and the errands they made him do are repetitive and definitely not benign. They keep him running around the campus like a headless chicken for their own amusement.
But he couldn't say no. His brother has been vindictive and petty in his punishments. From kicking him out of their shared dorm room to littering his closet with critters. The teachers have been admonishing him for his hygiene and he can still feel the rashes on his back.
Some days he wonders if this is the same brother that he sees at home.
All of that has affected his attendance and grades. Father would be so disappointed.
“I just want to go.”
“Nuh uh,” one of Gerard’s friends says, “not until you give us what we want.”
“But that’s cheating, the teacher would know someone changed the grades.”
Gerard’s grin widens and he knows that it doesn’t bode well for him.
“Exactly,” he says, “Ms. Nida will know if it’s one of us. So, it has to be someone else. She wouldn’t suspect someone who isn’t even in her class, will she?”
“No.”
“Come on, Krom. You wouldn’t let your brother down, will you?”
“I can’t do it,” he says, holding onto the straps of his bag to hide his shaking hands.
“Maybe this will change his mind,” one of the friends says. The older boy is holding onto a branch, patting it against his other hand. The branch is twice as long as his arm and probably thrice as thick as Krom’s wrist. The bark is rough and the parts where smaller branches have grown have split off from it in sharp nubs.
That would hurt.
Krom backs away from the older boys until he hits a wall. The boy with the branch is too close.
He curls himself up as small as he can and braces for impact.
“Stop it.”
There is no contact.
A girl, barely taller than himself, is standing between Krom and his bullies. Her voice was shrill as she shouted but no less firm as her stance.
She is holding out her hand, fingers grasping the branch even as blood falls to the ground.
Everyone is frozen, except for the girl.
She turns around, a panicked look on her face as she somehow manages to wrestle the branch from the older boy and throws it to the ground.
She grabs Krom by the arm and shouts, “Run!”
That seems to bring everyone out of their stupor. Before Krom knows it, they are running through the halls of the next building with Gerard and his friends hot on their tails.
And for some reason, this girl, his savior, is giggling all the while.
It’s late in the afternoon and there are no classes in this hall as they take random turns in every corridor.
Soon, she pulls him into an empty classroom.
Krom is about to close the door when she stops him
“Don’t,” she whispers pulling him behind the half-opened door, “They’ll know we're here.”
Krom nods, following her lead as they stand side-by-side, one hand on their mouths.
The voices of their seniors are loud as they run through the halls. Kicking open doors and shouting as they try to search for the two kids. One of them even enters the room Krom and the girl is hiding in, taking a peek under one of the tables as he scans the room around them.
Krom is shaking. It’s getting harder to breathe in the stuffy space, he’s-
The girl grabs his hand, squeezing it tightly and pulling it to her chest.
She faces him, smiles, then breathes deeply. Allowing her chest to expand and contract slowly with each exhale.
Krom follows her.
Syncing their breathing with each other as silently as they can as they hear the ruckus of his brother and his friends outside the hall.
“I’ll be there in a bit,” Gerard shouts from somewhere a little too close to their hiding space.
The noises disappear completely and only then did they realize they were holding their breaths.
The girl giggles, and maybe that made Krom giggle, too.
They’re both okay.
But the girl winces when they let go of their hands, her palm is still wounded from the branch. The pressure from their hands must have stopped the bleeding for a while but they need to get her treated right away.
“Let me take you to the clinic,” Krom says, “The nurse is really nice.”
“I believe you,” she says with a toothy smile.
He feels pride in that. No one in this school has taken his side before.
But before they could leave the classroom.
“Found you,” Gerard says as he lunges for them.
Krom immediately closes the door and locks it.
It is fortunate that there are no other entrances for their bullies to reach them. But they are also trapped here. The window is large enough for both of them but the room they are in is on the fifth floor.
Krom slumps down on the floor as their seniors bang on the other side. The knob may hold for now but who knows until when the old metal will give with the force of five teenagers.
The girl drags a chair towards him.
He makes her sit down on that chair and finds more movable furniture to barricade it.
Another chair? There isn’t much that he can carry here.
“Krom! You know you can’t escape from me!”
The lock pops off from the door.
Krom runs back to the door and pushes with all his weight.
The girl leans back with her shoulder and while she is struggling like he is, Krom can’t find a trace of fear in her. There is determination in her gaze even in the helplessness of their situation.
If only he is stronger, or even half as courageous as her. Then, maybe...
“What is the meaning of this?” a booming voice cries from outside the room.
The banging and scratching from the other side immediately cease.
The rest of the exchange is indecipherable but Krom continues to hold onto the door.
Then, a gentle knocking on the battered wood.
“Dears, it’s Mrs. Orleans. Could you please open the door for me?”
“I-” Krom starts but he’s still shaking.
“Will do,” the girl answers, reaching for Krom with her uninjured hand.
“We’re going to be okay,” she tells him.
Krom nods and allows her to open the door for the both of them.
“Krom?” Mrs. Orleans exclaims as she turns to Gerard, “Your own brother? The disciplinary committee will hear about this.”
Gerard bows his head in shame. There is swelling on the bridge of his nose, probably, when he tried to grab them both and Krom slammed the door in his face.
“And-” the teacher eyes the girl up and down before turning pale, “Ms. Guinevere?”
“That’s me,” she says with a wave.
Krom didn’t know how the woman could turn any paler as she reached for the girl’s wounded hand.
“What happened?”
“I protected my friend,” she says proudly. “They wanted to hit him with a branch because he wouldn’t do what he told them to.”
The woman takes a deep breath, calming herself down before she addresses Krom.
“And what did they tell you to do, dear?”
Gerard panics, “We just-”
Mrs. Orleans snaps back, “I was not talking to you.”
“Don’t look at him," Mrs. Orleans says gently, crouching to his height, "I just want the truth.”
Krom feels a tug on his hand. The girl, his new friend, nods at him.
“They wanted me to sneak in to Ms. Nida’s classroom to change their test grades.”
There is a chorus of appeals from the older boys. But Mrs. Orleans will not hear of it.
She faces all of them and a glare from her shuts them all up.
“You are supposed to be the future of Rhodon and this is how you lot behave? We’d be lucky if this doesn’t cause a diplomatic incident at best. Now, I will take Mr. Krom and Ms. Guinevere here to the clinic first and when I go to the principal’s office I expect to find all of you there. Go missing and I will have you automatically expelled from this academy and blacklisted from all other schools.”
“You can’t do that!” one of Gerard’s friends shouts.
“Do you want to test me?”
Was it that bad?
Even Guinevere is confused.
“Now go,” she says to them one final time before she waves her hand to dismiss them.
After the older boys have left their sight, Mrs. Orleans takes a moment to collect herself. “Let’s get the both of you cleaned up and treated, shall we?”
Guinevere smiles and lets the teacher lead her through the halls.
Krom takes one last look at the room that offered them refuge.
It is a music room. Instruments line the cabinets on the walls while a grand piano sits at the center.
“Let’s go!” Guinevere calls out to him, waving her right hand to beckon him to her side. When she realizes she’s holding out her bloody hand, she replaces it with her left.
If it wasn’t for her, it would have been Krom’s hand that would be injured.
Krom picks up the pace. The least he can do is not keep her waiting.
---------------
There is nothing much to treat on Krom, but his new friend needed a bit more care for her hand and the principal and disciplinary officer had a few words to exchange with him.
They didn’t discuss many details but they have arranged a new room for him for the rest of the semester. As for what to do with his brother and how they’re going to tell their parents, they’ll discuss it tomorrow.
And honestly, a part of him is relieved to be given some space away from Gerard.
But he still can’t sleep tonight.
He’s tired but everything seems too chaotic. He twists and turns in his bed and thinks: What are his mother and father going to think about all this? Will he be blamed for what happened to his family’s heir? Is the Gerard he remembers at home even real, or was he just playing the good son in front of their parents?
What happens now?
In the end, Krom decides to get up from bed. He puts on the jacket from yesterday and exits his new room.
There is a grand piano in the room that served as their refuge.
It is a full moon tonight, enough light to illuminate the halls of the building through the large windows in the halls.
He’s good with directions. He can find where he needs to go.
The door is still open. The lock hasn’t been replaced yet. It’s fine, there’s no one here at this hour anyway.
He pries open the lid of the keys and slides his fingers over the ivory, the coldness of the smooth surface is a familiar sensation. He takes a seat on the wooden bench and pulls it closer, enough for his feet to reach and move about the pedals.
Krom loves the piano.
He hovers his hands over the keys and takes a deep breath.
Then, silence.
He’s frozen in place. Fingertips barely applying any pressure on the keys. And try as he might he can’t find it in him to make a sound. He wants a melody but the only thing resonating in his mind is noise.
Krom wants to cry.
It wasn’t like this before.
He’d listen to the music and the music would listen to him. He’d press on the piano’s keys and he’d be everywhere and nowhere at once. It used to be as easy as breathing. He didn’t even need a music sheet, he knew exactly where the next notes would be and it would heed his call.
When his mother found out about his talent for the piano, his father allowed for a tutor. They made him play scores and scores of music. They made him play for hundreds and hundreds of people for hundreds and hundreds of hours. It was never the difficulty of the piece that bothered him but how the music didn’t speak to him. He gains nothing from the sound emitted by the compositions that demand so much from him.
He is Krom, the second son of the great House Ledios. He is not the heir but he is still expected to uphold the honor and pride of the family all the same.
And now away from his parents, his brother, and everyone else. With only the light of the moon guiding his steps, nobody can see him struggling with the weight of expectations.
Krom wants to play again. His fingers are itching for the keys. His heart is yearning for a song. But his mind is noisy. Everything is so jumbled together that nothing can come out.
He buries his face in his palms. The only audience to his sadness is the piano in front of him.
Krom jumps when he feels somebody beside him.
It’s her. The friend who saved him from Gerard. The friend who took the hit for him.
There is a confused expression on her face as she tries to read him. Then, she faces the piano. Her eyebrows knitted and her lips pouted as she reaches for the keys.
She plays a lullaby.
A song passed down from before the War of Tyrants and maybe even ages before that.
At first, Krom just watches. This girl, with bandages on her hand and the moonlight on her hair, is playing a song about a twinkling, little star. He doesn't think he's seen anything like her before, but somehow it makes sense.
After she finishes the melody a second time, she improvises. She plays with the same chords, matches with different notes on her right hand, and experiments with the tempo. Just like that, she finds a tune that she likes.
It untangles something in him.
Krom plays. He picks up the tune that made her smile, the one she was playing that made the corner of her mouth crease upward, and continues from there.
He listens to the music and the music listens to him. He presses on the piano’s keys and he’s here in this safe place with her. Playing this song with her, for her, is as easy as breathing. He doesn’t need a music sheet, this song is a newborn whose existence needs to be loved before being named. He knows exactly what the next notes will be and it heeds his call.
Krom doesn’t realize when Gwen lifts her fingers off the keys and leans back leisurely on the bench. She’s close enough that he can feel the warmth of her body but still, just enough space that he’d be able to reach the farthest notes on her side if he so wished.
That night, he has a new song.
“My name is Gwen, by the way.”
“And, I am Krom.”
Just Krom. And he’d be content even if the world only remembers him for this song.