Chapter 52 - What Remained Unanswered

Dinner ended later than planned, followed by light conversation in the family room while watching old recordings of Michi's high school concerts—something that made Michi's face flush with embarrassment to death every time Akari proudly pointed out the awkward moments on screen.

When Akari invited Michi to help clear the dishes in the kitchen, Bayu suddenly rose from the sofa, throwing the small basketball he usually played with indoors toward Rimba without warning.

"Come with me," he said briefly, already walking toward the side door leading to the backyard, where a small basketball hoop was mounted on the garage wall.

Rimba caught the ball on reflex, watching Bayu's back as it walked away, then glanced briefly toward the kitchen, where Michi was laughing with her mother. There was no choice but to follow.

The Yogyakarta night air was fairly cool, lit only by the dim yellow light from the back porch and moonlight filtering through the leaves of the old mango tree in the corner of the yard. Bayu stood beneath the hoop, holding out his hand to ask for the ball back.

"You play basketball, Swara?" he asked, bouncing the ball a few times before releasing a smooth shot that went straight into the hoop. "Used to, back in middle school, before I focused more on music," Rimba answered, catching the rebound and attempting a shot of his own that missed wide of the target.

Bayu let out an amused snort, retrieving the ball as it rolled toward him. "No wonder. Your hands are more used to hitting a drum kit and writing scores than shooting a ball." For a few minutes, they simply took turns throwing the ball in silence, broken only by the sound of it bouncing against the asphalt and the occasional creak of the old, rattling hoop. Rimba started to feel a little more relaxed, assuming the sharp conversation at the dinner table earlier had already run its course.

He was wrong.

"I'll ask you one more time," Bayu said suddenly, his voice still flat as usual, but this time without any hint of joking at all. He stopped the game, standing still while holding the ball against his chest, staring straight at Rimba. "Have you thought about it yet—say, five years from now, ten years from now, are you still going to be here? I'm not asking about your orchestra project or your gig schedule. I'm asking about your actual life—a home, a family, a concrete future. Not just 'I'm choosing to be different from my parents,' like what you said back at dinner."

Rimba fell silent. The ball in his hands suddenly felt heavier than it should have. "I..." He paused, steadying his breath, trying to find the words that usually flowed so easily whenever he composed a melody. But this time, everything felt stuck. "I've honestly never thought that far ahead."

"Why not?" Bayu didn't soften his tone in the slightest. "Because you're scared, or because you're just not ready?"

"Both, maybe." Rimba rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding Bayu's stare. "I grew up watching how a household that was supposedly full of love could collapse in a single night, all because one person decided to chase power instead of his own family. I don't—" he paused for a moment, his jaw tightening, "I don't know how to make sure I won't end up like him."

Bayu studied Rimba's face for a long time, not answering right away. Something in his eyes shifted—not full sympathy, but a quiet acknowledgment that the answer, at least, was honest. "That's a more reasonable answer than the one you gave at dinner earlier," he finally said, tossing the ball gently back to Rimba. "But it also means you haven't actually dealt with what you're afraid of. You're just covering it up with a nice sentence." The line struck deeper than Bayu probably realized. Rimba caught the ball without really seeing it, his gaze empty, fixed on the hoop swaying slowly.

"I'm not saying you need to have an answer tonight," Bayu continued, his tone softening slightly though still controlled. "But if you're actually serious about Kak Michi, sooner or later you're going to have to find that answer. Not for me. For yourself." He grabbed the towel draped over his shoulder, wiped his face, then started walking back toward the house. "And when you do find your answer, make sure it's not an answer you're only making because you're afraid of losing her. Because that's not commitment. That's just a different shape of the same fear."

Rimba stood alone in the emptying backyard, staring at the basketball in his hands without really seeing it. Bayu's words kept spinning through his head, far sharper than the harshest musical critique he'd ever received from any supervising professor.

Through the kitchen window, he could faintly make out Michi's silhouette laughing lightly while drying dishes with her mother—so calm, so certain that everything was fine.

Rimba let out a long breath, staring up at the night sky, now beginning to fill with stars. For the first time since he and Michi had officially been together, a question settled deep in his chest—one he couldn't answer with any tone or musical notation.

He didn't yet know that the answer to that question would come far sooner, and far more painfully, than he had ever prepared himself for.

He lingered out there a while longer after Bayu had gone inside, letting the cool night air settle over him, replaying every word of that conversation against the easy warmth still drifting out from the kitchen window. It was strange, he thought, how a question asked over a basketball hoop could feel heavier than anything Professor Hans had ever thrown at him across a review table. He bounced the ball once, twice, listening to it echo flatly off the garage wall, and found he had no answer waiting for him there either—only the growing sense that Bayu had just handed him a homework assignment with no due date, and no way of knowing how much time he actually had left to finish it.