Chapter 32 - Time Moving Forward

Four months passed in Yogyakarta without leaving behind the suffocating rush that used to grip Michi's chest. Her days were no longer measured by how precisely a metronome ticked in the conservatory practice room, but by how well she was learning to savor every breath, every pause, in her own life. Even the walk from the main building to the basement studio, once made in careful, calculated haste, had slowed into something she actually looked forward to. On campus, the change stirred a wave of astonishment that eventually settled into respect. Professor Hans, once the fiercest opponent of her improvisational style, had begun to soften—even letting Michi lead class interpretation sessions from time to time, having come to recognize that the young pianist's playing now carried a soul capable of shaking an entire room. Blind obedience had long since fallen away, replaced by a discipline born from a genuine, unforced love of art.

Her relationship with her family in Sagan shifted into something far more settling as well. Ever since the night she'd openly declared her resolve, there was no more quiet tension or forced smiles lingering across the dinner table. Her father, Seno, had asked her more than once to let him hear the free-form arrangements she'd been working on with Rimba—the most honest sign of recognition a family patriarch who valued artistic courage could give. He never said much afterward, but she noticed he'd started keeping the recordings on his phone, playing them quietly in his study some evenings when he thought no one was listening. One evening, her mother, Akari, even sat with her on the back porch, handing over a warm cup of chamomile tea, studying her daughter with a glint of pride in her eyes that Michi had never once seen before. "I've always known you could be trusted, Michi," her mother whispered that evening, a sincere validation that had since become the strongest anchor in her chest. As for Bayu, though he still liked to toss out sharp remarks to remind her where the lines were, he never once showed up at the studio with a threat again; her younger brother had, in fact, quietly taken to dropping off old score sheets from time to time, asking the two of them to rework the arrangements together.

Inside Basement Studio Number Three, time seemed to move to its own particular rhythm. The room, once nothing more than a secret hideout, had transformed into the most honest space of collaboration Michi and Rimba had ever shared. On that same mixing desk, amid stacks of score sheets, smears of black ink, and cups of black coffee left to go cold in the corner, they built new pieces together, fusing the grand structure of European classical music with the raw, free spirit unique to an indie band.

That afternoon, the orange glow of the setting sun pushed through the gap in the upper ventilation slats, catching on the keys of the digital piano Michi was playing. Her fingers moved deftly, weaving Chopin's melancholic melody together with the acoustic guitar chord progressions Rimba played beside her. There was no more hesitation left. Every note that came out sounded whole, reflecting exactly who Michi really was—no longer some conservatory show puppet, but an independent musician holding full command over her own fate.

Rimba slowed his guitar playing to a stop, letting the last note hang in the air, thick with the scent of light tobacco and old paper, before finally breaking into a thin smile. His thumb reached out to brush away a small smudge of ink on Michi's wrist with a motion so familiar it barely registered as a touch at all.

"If you play like that once you're in Vienna, the audience there is going to think twice before trying to lecture you on interpretation," Rimba said quietly, his tone hiding a pride that ran remarkably deep.

Michi let out a small laugh, stopping her piano playing to turn and face Rimba fully. "Who said I'm going to let them boss me around anyway? I'm going there to learn and prove what I can do on my own terms, not to be some gallery display piece."

Rimba took hold of Michi's hand, wrapping her slender fingers in a warmth that had, by now, become the safest home the pianist knew. Even as the shadow of her departure for Austria drew closer with each passing day—only a matter of weeks left before the plane tickets and final official documents were in hand—there was no more fear left clutching at either of their chests.

"Four months is nothing, Maestro," Rimba whispered reassuringly, his dark eyes staring straight into hers, full of quiet conviction. "At midnight, or even thousands of kilometers away, the score we've written together is still going to sound exactly the same."

The thousands of kilometers that would eventually separate Yogyakarta from Vienna no longer looked, to either of them, like a dividing wall. It looked instead like a new chapter in their shared journey—a test of loyalty, and proof that the roots they had planted together ran far deeper than any wind that might try to tear them down.

In the weeks that followed, that certainty settled into something almost ordinary, woven quietly into the fabric of their days together—one more rehearsal squeezed in after her family dinners, one more late-night message reminding her not to forget her passport photocopies, one more Sunday spent side by side at the same mixing desk, adding a line here, cutting a bar there. Neither of them talked about the coming distance as often as they once might have. It had simply become a fact they were both learning to carry lightly, the way a musician learns to hold a difficult passage in memory long before it ever needs to be played out loud. Some nights, that was enough on its own—no promises exchanged, no countdown mentioned, just two people sitting quietly in the same small room, content to let the clock keep moving without either of them watching it too closely.