Quiet | BTS ✓

64

"This is it," Mr. Min says, smiling at his students backstage in the auditorium. "Please remember that this is an important grade for your final semester, but this is also an opportunity for you to tell your story to everyone out there. Make me proud, but more importantly, make yourself proud."

All of his students applaud and join in a quick group hug before backing up and spreading out to do some last minute tuning to their instruments.

Aria bites her lip and looks at Yoongi nervously, and he wraps his arms around her.

"You're going to do such a beautiful thing out there opening for the concert, love," he says reassuringly, kissing the top of her head as Mr. Min gives them a quick wink before walking out onto the stage.

"I love you," she says as her heart pounds in her chest.

"I love you too," Yoongi says as he gently squeezes her. "Forever."

"Forever," she repeats, smiling up at him as she presses her lips onto his.

Her hands are shaking as Yoongi pulls away from her, but he is quick to intertwine his fingers with hers, rubbing his thumbs against her skin as they hear Mr. Min announcing Aria's solo.

"You can do this, beautiful," Yoongi says, kissing her cheek before Aria's feet carry her onto the bright stage.

In the middle of the stage sits the grand piano that will help her tell her story, and she swallows the lump in her throat as she makes her way to sit down on the bench. The crowd is completely silent as they wait for her to begin, and after taking a deep, steadying breath, she lets her fingers press the keys of the piano as her piece begins.

Most people would expect someone opening such a large scale concert to play a happy, upbeat piece to get the crowd excited for what is to come, but Aria knows it would not be genuine for her to play such a piece.

Her story is not the happiest of tales; she signifies that as she lets the piano speak for her. She tells of her unexplainable losses and her regrets of every single thing she never got to do.

She didn't get to tell her parents that she loves them one last time. Her parents didn't get to drop her off for her first day of college. She never got to apologize for accidentally breaking her mother's favorite mug. She never got to show her father her favorite book that she'd been meaning to make him read because she knew he would love it as much as she does.

For so long, regret tainted her mind and she lived in the past, playing memories in her mind as though they were her present and her future as well.

She couldn't turn the page to the next chapter in her story; she could only watch her happy memories warp into tormenting nightmares as everything she could've done differently played in her head like a movie that has no possibility of a happy ending.

Through all of the torment and pain, she couldn't even voice her sorrow to others; that simple luxury had been stripped from her as well, and all she could do was wander aimlessly and silently through her life, wondering where she is supposed to go from here.

Then, one night, as she told her sorrows in the only way she could, a boy came in and heard her story. Without hearing an actual word of her past, he could hear her pain clearer than anyone ever has, and she felt a spark ignite in her soul. She felt understood and heard for the first time since the accident, and it was such a foreign feeling to Aria that she was terrified.

She was terrified of letting this mysterious boy in; all she could think of was her past and how everything was now lost to her, just out of her reach. She couldn't imagine that anyone could truly understand her and how she felt. Especially because she couldn't understand it herself.

But this boy didn't walk away when she put her mask back on; he stayed and he gently coaxed her into revealing her true self behind her mask again and again. He showed her his own dark past, and she realized how strong he was for putting his past where it needed to be.

Behind him.

So she stood up and she took a single step forward. And then another.

The past, though excruciatingly painful for her, is just that.

It's her past.

So she bid farewell to her parents one last time, silently apologizing to her mother for the broken mug and to her father for being so forgetful and not showing him a book he would've truly enjoyed.

And she walked away.

She ran.

She ran into the arms of her future as her parents surely watched from a better place, smiling at their daughter as she saved herself from wilting in her darkness.

Aria realized that the past is not a place to live in. It's a place with no oxygen; it's a place that no one can survive in.

She realized she needed to live; she wanted to live.

So she had to move on.

So many times in her journey, she wanted to give up. She wanted to go back to that darkness that felt almost comforting at times because it was all she knew after losing her parents and her voice.

But every time the darkness called to her, there was always someone there to pull her back into the light.

She has a boyfriend who loves her, a best friend who cares for her, two people who treat her as if she is their own daughter and a teacher who has been her mentor for years now as she took a chance with music and created her new passion and her new voice with it.

She is not just surviving in this world now; she is living. She wakes up with a smile on her face instead of dried tears on her cheeks. She is not a broken soul anymore.

Piece by piece, she glued herself back together with the help of those she loves the most.

As her story on stage comes to an end, she can feel her parents' presence on the stage with her, and she knows she's made them proud.

She's made herself proud.