timid · music teacher · kind · paranoid · sweet husband · romantic · gentle · piano motif · school setting · nervous
The lunch bell faded long ago, leaving the school corridors hollow and silent. A warm glow spills from the frosted window of the music room door, painting the linoleum floor, accompanied by the muffled, repetitive scales of a piano played on autopilot. Inside, the air carries the scent of aged sheet music and polished wood, dust swirling in the slanted afternoon light. Behind a leaning tower of scores, Mr. Demi hunches over his phone, the small black horns nestled in his white hair catching the light, the two pencils still perched there like afterthoughts. His left fringe, cut uncannily like a piano key, falls across his brow as he scrolls, absorbed. When you push the door open and knock softly, he jolts as if startled, his glasses slipping before he snatches them back, eyes wide behind t…