Chapter 94: The Wrong Room

Chapter 94 — The Wrong Room

Roxanne headed toward the arts building that afternoon to return a library book Isla had borrowed weeks ago and never gotten around to giving back, grumbling the whole way about how it wasn’t even her overdue fine. She took the wrong corridor somewhere along the way, and when she pushed open the door she expected to lead to the library’s small study room, she found herself standing in the middle of a music rehearsal instead.

Several students stopped playing at once. A girl at the piano looked up, startled mid-chord, while another student wrestled with a badly tuned instrument that let out a mournful honk. Roxanne apologized immediately and started to back out, but the student coordinator near the front asked whether she was there for the open music-room session.

Before Roxanne could answer, the coordinator explained that the session was open to anyone who wanted to try an instrument, sing, or just sit and listen. There were no auditions and nothing being graded. Roxanne was about to decline politely when she noticed Roshan sitting near the back with a music book open in front of him, looking just as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

"You’re hiding?" she asked. "I’m reading," he said. "In a music room?" she asked. "The room was quiet when I arrived," he said. Just then, someone at the piano struck three loud, badly wrong notes, and Roshan closed his book with a sigh. "Not anymore," he said. Roxanne laughed and decided to stay for a few minutes after all.

The session resumed around them, students taking turns at various instruments, making mistakes and laughing at themselves without embarrassment, the room filling with a cheerful kind of noise that had nothing to do with skill.

Roxanne discovered, somewhat to her surprise, that Roshan actually knew how to play the piano. He didn’t show off or perform for attention. He simply sat down when the coordinator asked for a volunteer to accompany a nervous student singer, and his playing turned out to be gentle and precise, nothing like what she had expected.

She had heard him speak thoughtfully plenty of times, and she’d watched him notice details nobody else caught, the quiet habit that made him Roshan, but this felt different somehow. Music gave him a way to express himself that didn’t require explaining anything at all. When he finished, he returned to his seat as though nothing unusual had happened.

Roxanne leaned toward him. "How long have you been able to do that?" she asked. "Since I was young," he said. "And you never mentioned it?" she asked. "You never asked," he said. She narrowed her eyes at him. "That is an extremely Roshan answer," she said, and he almost smiled.

Before the session ended, the coordinator discovered that someone needed to help organize a pile of song sheets and music books before the room closed for the evening. Roxanne offered to help, mostly because she could see the chaos would take forever otherwise, and Roshan joined her without being asked.

While they sorted through the stacks, papers slipping from uneven piles every few minutes, a student asked Roxanne whether she could sing. "I don’t need to prove that I can’t sing," she said, when the girl refused to simply take her word for it. Roshan, without even glancing up from the books in his hands, said, "She’s right." Roxanne turned toward him. "Whose side are you on?" she asked. "The side of finishing before dinner," he said, and the others laughed, and whatever tension had built dissolved instantly.

Eventually the coordinator put on a song everyone in the room seemed to know, and students began singing along badly and loudly, without a trace of self-consciousness, someone even standing on a chair for dramatic effect. Roxanne tried to resist joining in, but Isla arrived in the middle of it, heard the music through the open door, and pulled her straight into the chaos.

Roxanne finally sang a few lines, and Roshan heard her. He didn’t tease her about it, and he didn’t make a show of praising her either. He simply joined in quietly, low enough that the room’s attention didn’t suddenly swing toward her. It mattered more to her than any compliment could have.

While putting away the last of the music books, her arms stacked high with sheet music, Roxanne noticed Roshan had stopped at an old, handwritten composition tucked between two folders. She asked whether he had written it. He admitted he’d started it years ago and never finished. "Why not?" she asked. "I stopped working on it," he said. "That isn’t an answer," she said. "It’s the one I have," he said.

Roxanne didn’t push him to explain further. Instead she asked him to play it. Roshan hesitated for a moment before sitting back down at the piano, and the unfinished melody that followed was quiet and faintly melancholy, ending abruptly at exactly the point where the page simply stopped.

When he finished, Roxanne didn’t pretend to understand what had inspired it. "I liked it," she said simply. "It’s incomplete," he said. "So?" she said. He looked at her, waiting. "Not everything has to be finished before someone can like it," she said, and Roshan considered that for a long moment before carefully closing the music book in front of him.

The session wound down soon after, students gathering their bags and drifting out in loose, chattering groups. Isla invited Roxanne to join her for dinner, but Roxanne noticed Roshan still helping the coordinator return the instruments to their cases, and she stayed behind to help stack the chairs instead.

Roshan asked, almost shyly, whether she had enjoyed the session. "I enjoyed watching you pretend you weren’t enjoying yourself," she said. "I was enjoying the music," he said. "Of course," she said. He looked at her with a faint, amused expression. "You should come again," he said. "Is that an invitation?" she asked. "It’s a suggestion," he said. "Those are different things," she said. "Would you prefer an invitation?" he asked. "I’ll consider it," she said, smiling, and Roshan accepted that without pressing her further.

They left the arts building separately, and Roxanne realized she had stumbled onto something she might actually enjoy purely for herself, with nothing to prove to anyone, no scores, and no royal expectations attached to it at all.

That evening, back in the dormitory, Isla demanded to know where she’d been for so long, and Roxanne told her the whole story about the music session, including the part about Roshan at the piano.

Isla was genuinely astonished. "Of course he has a secret talent," she said. "Does that family have any ordinary weaknesses?" "Liam has no sense of shame," Roxanne offered. "That’s not a weakness," Isla said. "That’s a public hazard." Roxanne laughed, and found herself thinking about the unfinished melody long after the conversation moved on to something else.

Later, while she was studying, a message arrived from Roshan. I found the missing final page, it read. Roxanne typed back immediately. And? His answer came after a short pause. I still don’t know how it ends. She looked at the words for a moment before replying. Maybe you don’t have to know yet.

Roshan didn’t respond right away. A few minutes later, well after she’d nearly given up checking her phone, he sent her a photograph instead, not the finished composition, just the part of the handwritten page he’d been missing all along. Roxanne studied the image carefully before saving it to her phone.

The next afternoon, she passed the music room again on her way somewhere else entirely, and through the open door she heard the same unfinished melody being played once more. This time, it continued well past the point where it had stopped before. Roxanne paused in the corridor, caught completely off guard.

Roshan looked up from the piano and caught her listening, but he didn’t stop playing. She stood there for a moment longer, listening to the notes spill out into the corridor, and then she went inside.